- 


Ctbravjp  of  Che  Cheolo^ical  ^emmarjp 

PRINCETON  *  NEW  JERSEY 


PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of  the 
Rev.  John  B.  Wleainger 

BR  85  . S39 

Shannon,  Frederick  F.  1877- 
1947  . 

A  moneyless  magnate 


t 


I 


A  MONEYLESS  MAGNATE 


FREDERICK  F.  SHANNON 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


\ 


https://archive.org/details/rnoneylessmagnate00shan_0 


A  MONEYLESS  MAGNATpTmS^;- 


and  Other  Essays 


4 


A 


MAY  25  1848 


BY 


^OSICAL  ^0" 


FREDERICK  F/SHANNON 


MINISTER  OF  CENTRAL  CHURCH,  CHICAGO 


Author  of  “Sermons  for  Days  We  Observe “The  Soul's 
Atlas ,”  “The  New  Personality,”  “The 
Country  Faith,”  etc. 


NEW 


YORK 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1923, 

BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


A  MONEYLESS  MAGNATE.  I 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


TO 

MR.  and  MRS.  EDWARD  B.  BUTLER 

LOVERS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL, 
DISCIPLES  OF  THE  TRUE, 

FRIENDS  OF  HUMANITY, 
SUPPORTERS  OF  CENTRAL  CHURCH. 


I 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  A  Moneyless  Magnate . n 

II  Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  ....  31 

III  Morning  Tourist ,  Ltd! . 52 

IV  An  Artist  in  Living  .  .  .  .  .  .  71 

V  Bryanism . 89 

VI  A  Letter  to  <(Main  Street ”  .  .  .  .  107 

VII  Henry  Ward  Beecher . 127 

VIII  Phillips  Brooks  .  .  ...  .  .  .  .  .  157 


\ 


A  MONEYLESS  MAGNATE 


I 


A  Moneyless  Magnate 

MY  boyhood  memories  are  redolent  of  an  eve¬ 
ning  with  H.  T.  Stanton,  the  Kentucky  poet. 
Unlike  many  of  his  poetic  brethren,  he  had  the  art  of 
reading  his  own  productions  in  a  voice  and  manner 
full  of  charm.  Among  the  selections  he  read  that 
evening  was  ‘‘The  Moneyless  Man,”  probably  the 
best  known  of  all  his  poems.  I  thought,  as  I  sat 
under  the  rise  and  fall  of  his  melodious  voice,  that 
he  made  a  strong  case  for  the  man  with  an  empty 
purse;  and,  within  certain  limitations,  I  still  think 
so.  He  took  our  empty-handed  friend  into  banquet 
halls  of  light,  hung  with  velvet  and  trimmings  of 
gold,  and  flashing  with  mirrors  of  silver ;  he  led  him 
up  the  aisle  of  a  fashionable  church,  wherein  his  rags 
and  patches  seemed  ill  at  home  amid  such  pomp  and 
pride ;  he  gave  him  a  look  in  the  banks,  bulging  with 
“piles  of  the  glittering  ore;”  he  presented  him  to  the 
Judge,  robed  “in  his  dark,  flowing  gown,”  who 
smiled  on  the  strong  and  frowned  on  the  weak.  Al¬ 
ways,  no  matter  where  he  introduced  his  dollar-poor 

ii 


12  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

pilgrim,  there  was  no  smile,  no  pew,  no  credit,  no 
justice — nothing  whatever  for  “the  moneyless  man.” 
At  last,  however,  when  life’s  fitful  dream  was  over, 
and  blithely,  almost  gayly,  oblivious  of  ethical  con¬ 
siderations — 

“There’s  welcome  above  for — 
a  moneyless  man” 

Now  no  sane  person,  surely,  manifests  any  dispo¬ 
sition  to  depreciate  the  value  of  money.  For  money 
is  not  only  absolutely  necessary,  but  in  some  true  and 
noble  sense  a  part  of  the  “good  things”  offered  at  the 
feast  of  life.  However,  one’s  quarrel  is  emphatically 
with  the  philosophy  of  life  which  dominates  the 
poem,  because,  if  for  no  other  reason,  it  is  one  of 
those  subtle,  taking  half-truths  which  verge  on  the 
abyss  of  falsehood.  Schiller’s  familiar  saying  that 
the  artist  is  known  by  what  he  omits,  belongs  to  the 
same  questionable  mental  progeny.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  genuine  artist  is  known  by  what  he  leaves 
out,  but  by  what  he  puts  in.  To  omit  is,  at  best,  noth¬ 
ing  more  than  negation ;  to  put  in  is  creation.  For 
example:  Is  Raphael  known  for  what  he  left  out  of 
his  “Sistine  Madonna”?  To  ask  the  question  ought 
to  evoke  a  sensible  answer;  certainly  a  glimpse  at 
those  two  cherubs  lifts  it  beyond  the  realm  of  dis¬ 
pute..  No:  the  merest  dauber  can  leave  out;  only 
an  artist  can  put  in  the  ideas  worthy  of  genius. 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  13 

Yet,  whether  in  the  matter  of  money  or  painting 
or  morals,  the  soul  of  man,  as  Montaigne  long  ago 
affirmed,  “discharges  her  passions  upon  false  objects, 
where  the  true  are  wanting.’ ’  Now  the  only  way  to 
dislodge  the  false  is  to  install  the  true ;  but  the  false¬ 
ness  of  things,  like  the  poor,  is  ever  with  us,  and  it 
has  such  an  insatiable  appetite  that  it  sometimes 
threatens  to  devour  the  true  altogether,  leaving  not  a 
wrack  of  the  permanent  values  in  the  wake  of  its 
greedy  and  materialistic  triumph.  This  paper,  there¬ 
fore,  is  the  crass  confession  of  “A  Moneyless  Mag¬ 
nate.”  If  either  the  moneyed  or  moneyless  man  de¬ 
nies  its  major  postulate,  calling  it  a  paradox  and  such 
like,  he  is  thoroughly  within  his  verbal  rights.  Only, 
I  would  gently  remind  my  pragmatic  and  easily 
overheated  friends,  that  one  of  the  definitions  of  a 
paradox  reads  as  follows :  “That  which  in  appearance 
or  terms  is  absurd,  but  yet  may  be  true  in  fact.” 

1 

To  begin  with,  and  speaking  as  becomes  a  modest 
man,  I  own  huge  blocks  of  real  estate.  All  of  that 
downtown  section  in  New  York,  between  the  Brook¬ 
lyn  Bridge  and  Battery  Park,  is  in  a  special  sense 
my  own  property.  The  view  of  it  from  my  study 
window  is  simply  enchanting.  There  is  probably  no 
such  skyline  on  earth,  no  such  pile  of  concrete,  stone 
and  steel  on  the  planet.  Looking  out  from  the  south 


14  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

side  of  the  East  River,  I  find  my  sky-scrapers  in¬ 
variably  punctual  (except  on  a  foggy  day),  cordial, 
majestic,  awe-inspiring.  Had  Pericles  seen  them,  he 
would  have  said  that  they  were  built  by  the  gods,  not 
by  men.  They  do  not  savor  at  all  of  architectural 
monotony.  Each  is  a  law  unto  itself ;  many  colors 
urge  their  claims;  many  shapes  assert  their  popular¬ 
ity.  Perhaps  the  most  distinguishing  feature  in  the 
matter  of  similarity,  if  similarity  there  be,  is  this : 
Each  one  seems  struggling  to  be  a  little  higher  than 
all  the  others.  For  example,  when  the  Municipal 
Building  attained  a  height  of  560  feet  and  1  inch,  the 
Singer  Building  crawled  up  to  a  distance  of  612  feet 
and  1  inch.  You  see,  my  tall  buildings  are  so  jealous 
of  their  height,  that  they  even  claim  all  the  inches  due 
them !  Of  course  these  cloudy  aspirations  stirred  the 
Wool  worth  Building  into  a  towering,  climbing  rage, 
whose  wrath  never  cooled  until  it  reached  the  dizzy 
height  of  750  feet!  I  am  not  revealing  these  family 
secrets  in  a  fault-finding  spirit ;  for  I  don’t  mind  the 
ambitions  of  my  lofty  steel  and  stone  neighbors. 
They  might  perhaps  achieve  more  of  architectural 
harmony  if  their  heads  were  all  about  the  same 
height.  Still  I  take  satisfaction  in  their  variety,  even 
in  their  rough  raggedness  and  stony  jaggedness. 
Nor  is  their  attraction  one  whit  less  by  night.  For 
then  my  skyscrapers  are  transformed  into  illuminated 
cliffs,  brilliantly  twinkling  canyons  casting  their  lumi- 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  15 

nous  loveliness  across  the  shadow-hung  river.  Then 
also,  though  a  modern,  I  am  suddenly  changed  into  a 
cliff-dweller,  living  with  my  ancestors  of  the  dim  and 
antique  past. 

Now,  on  analyzing  the  terms  of  my  ownership  in 
these  colossal  buildings,  I  affirm  them  to  be  most  sat¬ 
isfactory.  Indeed,  after  much  reflection,  I  am  con¬ 
vinced  that  my  terms  are  very  much  better  than  the 
terms  imposed  upon  their  legal  owners.  For  in¬ 
stance  :  I  was  not  put  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
building  them.  Most  obligingly  have  others  planned 
and  invested  and  toiled  for  me.  Furthermore,  hav¬ 
ing  built  them,  my  generous  friends  promptly  pay  the 
taxes  on  them,  keep  them  in  repair,  and  graciously 
assume  all  the  responsibilities  connected  with  their 
maintenance.  So,  I  am  satisfied  with  my  terms  of 
ownership;  and  thus  far  I  have  heard  no  protest 
from  those  who  hold  title  deeds  to  the  buildings.  But 
there  is  one  other  item  in  which  I  claim  to  have  a 
distinct  advantage.  The  owners,  certainly  most  of 
them,  lack  my  opportunity  of  appraising  the  beauty 
of  their  real  estate.  Their  realty  may  yield  them 
much  gold,  but  if  it  fails  to  yield  them  the  dividends 
of  beauty  as  well,  of  what  permanent  value  is  all 
their  yield  in  gold?  And  196  Columbia  Heights, 
fourth  floor,  back  room,  offers  the  best  outlook  on 
earth.  If  you  don’t  believe  it,  come  in  and  see  for 
yourself ! 


16  A  Moneyless  Magnate 


ii 

Another  fraction  of  my  material  capital  is  in  the 
great  steamship  lines.  Shipbuilding  has  a  long  and 
interesting  history.  While  traveling  through  Colo¬ 
rado,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  fall  in  with  a  capti¬ 
vating  young  man.  Learning  that  I  once  lived  in 
Pennsylvania,  he  said  that  he  was  reminded  of  this 
story:  A  man  who  went  through  the  Johnstown 
flood,  talked  about  that  terrible  disaster  as  long  as  he 
lived.  After  dying  and  entering  the  New  Jerusalem, 
he  continued  to  recite  some  of  the  thrilling  episodes 
in  the  tragedy  of  Johnstown.  However,  he  discov¬ 
ered  that  among  his  listeners  there  was  always  a  ven¬ 
erable,  long-bearded  gentleman  who,  after  patiently 
hearing  the  recital,  religiously  shook  his  hoary  head 

and  remarked:  “No  flood  at  all.”  Naturally,  the 

* 

former  citizen  of  Johnstown  was  considerably  piqued 
by  this  chilling  and  ever-ready  comment  of  the 
ancient  one.  So  one  day  he  ventured  to  ask :  “Will 
somebody  be  good  enough  to  tell  me  the  name  of  the 
man  who,  every  time  I  recite  my  story  of  Johnstown, 
shakes  his  head  and  says :  ‘No  flood  at  all’  ?” 
“Why,”  answered  a  voice  from  the  crowd,  “that’s 
old  Father  Noah.”  And  Noah  was  the  pioneer  ship¬ 
builder,  a  first-hand  authority  on  floods.  We  must 
go  back  beyond  the  Egyptians,  the  Chaldeans,  even 
the  Phoenicians  themselves,  and  pay  tribute  to  the 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  17 

man  who  built  the  ark.  It  is  a  long  journey  from  the 
twentieth  century  queen  of  the  seas  back  to  the  dug- 
out,  the  raft,  and  the  log,  from  the  Delaware  and  the 
Clyde  to  water-courses  whose  shore-lines  have  either 
changed  or  quite  vanished  from  the  earth.  In  this, 
as  in  other  realms  of  life  and  progress,  evolution  is 
slow  but  steady  and  forward-looking.  Therefore,  as 
I  look  out  and  behold  my  gigantic  and  graceful 
vessels  coming  and  going,  why  should  I  not  rejoice  in 
my  spiritual  investments  in  these  stately,  floating 
palaces  of  the  deep?  They  visit  every  land  and  peo¬ 
ple;  they  return  laden  with  commerce,  food,  gold, 
and  gems  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Why,  the  sail¬ 
ing  of  any  one  of  them  is  enough  to  shake  one  to  the 
roots  of  his  being,  setting  the  looms  of  imagination  to 
weaving  thought-tapestries  from  invisible  threads 
that  bind  the  peoples  into  one !  And  mark  you :  It 
costs  me  nothing  to  enjoy  this  drifting,  movable  feast 
of  beauty.  Somebody,  of  course,  has  gone  to  vast 
expense  to  make  it  possible.  Generations  of  high  and 
brave  and  courageous  souls  lie  behind  it  all.  What  a 
mean,  stingy  nature  one  must  have  not  to  rise  up  and 
say:  “Thank  you,  brothers,  whoever  you  are  and 
wherever  you  be,  for  lending  me  your  brains,  your 
hands,  your  years.  Having  given  me  much,  let  me 
not  make  it  necessary  for  you  to  forgive  the  sin  of 
ingratitude  and  unappreciation.” 

Assessing  steamship  lines  at  their  supreme  values, 


18  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

I  naturally  claim  a  large  share  in  the  Bay — a  vast 
dimple  of  silver  set  in  a  vaster  cheek  of  beauty. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  used  to  say,  watching  the  white 
flocks  of  gulls  breasting  the  blue :  “There  go  my 
gulls.”  I  have  decided  to  yield  him  his  claim  on  the 
gulls  and  to  keep  the  Bay  for  myself.  Yes;  yonder 
go  the  immortal  preacher’s  snowy  gulls,  and  yonder, 
too,  goes  my  Bay— always  flowing,  always  going, 
but  never  gone!  Above  the  Bay,  and  higher,  much 
higher,  than  the  gulls,  human  birdmen  ride  in  their 
throbbing  machines.  Sometimes  they  perform  gyro¬ 
scopic  feats,  drop  from  great  heights  and  make 
straight  for  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  threatening  me 
with  heart  failure  in  their  apparent  aim  to  smash 
into  one  of  its  arches.  But  I  have  learned  that  there 
is  no  use  worrying — crossing  the  bridge  before  we 
reach  it — for  with  graceful,  swanlike  motion  the 
birdman  flyingly  dives  under  the  bridge.  Thus  is  my 
apoplectic  attack  postponed  until  the  daredevil  comes 
back  again! 

But  with  all  the  many-toned  life  and  kaleidoscopic 
scenes  along  river,  bay,  and  harbor,  I  mourn  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  one  of  my  noblest  ships.  Above  all  other 
vessels  that  have  sailed  the  seven  oceans,  her  blood¬ 
stains  are  the  deepest,  the  reddest,  the  most  unpar¬ 
donable.  Her  innocent  blood  will  crimson  the  seas 
until  Time  drinks  them  dry.  As  Joyce  Kilmer,  that 
white  and  brave  and  lamented  soldier-poet,  sang,  she 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  19 

did  not  go  forth  to  battle ;  she  carried  friendly  men ; 
children  played  about  her  decks  and  women  sang. 
In  this  unsuspecting  mood,  the  Lusitania  was  waylaid 
by  inhuman  monsters,  and  sent  to  her  ensanguined 
grave  in  the  deep.  Never  again  shall  I  see  her  come, 
as  of  old,  stately,  magnificent,  triumphant,  into  this 
hospitable  port.  But  above  the  unforgetting  years, 
above  roaring  billows  and  howling  tempests,  I  shall 
hear  the  accusing  voice  of  this  murdered  queen  of  the 
seas : 

“My  wrong  cries  out  for  vengeance ; 

The  blow  that  sent  me  here 
Was  aimed  in  Hell.  My  dying  scream 
Has  reached  Jehovah’s  ear. 

Not  all  the  seven  oceans 
Shall  wash  away  the  stain ; 

Upon  a  brow  that  wears  a  crown 
I  am  the  brand  of  Cain. 

When  God’s  great  voice  assembles 
The  fleet  on  Judgment  day, 

The  ghosts  of  ruined  ships  will  rise 
In  sea  and  strait  and  bay. 

Though  they  have  lain  for  ages 
Beneath  the  changeless  flood, 

They  shall  be  white  as  silver, 

But  one — shall  be  like  blood.” 

hi 

You  may  begin  to  think  that  my  riches  are  so 
fabulous  as  to  be  embarrassing.  But  let  me  reassure 


20  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

you  on  that  score ;  for  the  more  I  try  to  measure  my 
wealth  the  more  I  revel  in  it.  Consequently,  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  the  sea  only,  and  the  many  kinds  of 
vessels  that  traverse  its  fluent  paths.  I  claim  to  be,  in 
my  way,  a  heavy  investor  in  the  railroads  of  the 
United  States.  To  say  nothing  of  the  tremendous 
capital  invested,  it  costs  billions  every  year  to  operate 
American  railways.  They  represent  230, 000  miles  of 
steel  strung  over  cities,  towns,  plains,  hills,  and  val¬ 
leys.  Think  of  it — enough  steel  to  engirdle  the 
earth  more  than  thirteen  times !  I  have  a  friend  liv¬ 
ing  in  New  York  who  invited  his  father  to  come  on 
from  Ohio  to  visit  him.  He  told  his  father,  who  was 
as  transparent  as  noonday  and  as  candid  as  sunlight, 
that  he  must  make  the  journey  from  Ohio  on  one  of 
the  best  trains.  The  old  gentleman  accordingly 
boarded  the  fast  express  and  was  directed  to  hand¬ 
some  quarters  by  the  porter.  Soon  the  conductor 
came  in,  punched  his  ticket,  and  informed  him  that, 
in  case  he  wished  to  occupy  his  present  seat,  he 
would  have  to  pay  something  extra.  “How  much 
extra  ?”  retorted  the  passenger.  “Eighteen  dollars,” 
replied  the  conductor.  Now  I  have  already  said  that 
the  old  man  was  frankness  personified,  the  dispenser 
of  a  Lincolnlike  simplicity  that  smites  one  blind  by  its 
splendor.  Thus,  recovering  from  his  surprise,  the 
venerable  passenger  exclaimed :  “Eighteen  dollars  for 
a  little  cubby  hole  like  this  to  spend  the  night  in! 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  21 

Why,  man,  I  get  only  ten  dollars  a  month  for  an 
eight-room  house  back  in  the  town  where  I  live.  No, 
sir,  I’ll  have  none  of  your  fancy  cubby  holes  at 
eighteen  dollars  per  night.” 

Yet  there  are  many  who  are  glad  enough  to  pay  the 
extra  fare  on  these  luxurious  hotels  on  wheels, 
palaces  that  roll  and  whizz  through  space  at  a  be¬ 
wildering  speed.  But  before  many  years,  passenger 
trains  will  be  comparatively  out  of  date.  We  shall 
think  no  more  of  traveling  through  the  air  than  we 
now  do  of  traveling  by  automobile.  Utopian?  Why, 
the  ox-cart  and  canoe  were  once  utopian,  while  the 
steamship,  the  locomotive,  the  submarine,  and  wire¬ 
less  waves  were  perplexingly  so.  Man  has  only  be¬ 
gun  to  extract  the  multiplied  secrets  hidden  away  in 
the  cosmic  storehouse.  If  nations  will  come  together 
in  a  federation  of  brotherhood  and  mutual  coopera¬ 
tion,  thus  averting  the  disaster  of  race  extermination 
by  war,  there  is  hardly  a  limit  to  man’s  possible 
mastery  of  the  physical  forces.  Meantime,  I  am  a 
sharer  in  these  marvelous  railroad  systems — one  of 
the  most  stupendous  engineering  and  commercial 
achievements  in  the  history  of  mankind.  For  a  few 
dollars,  an  investment  of  billions  is  offered  for  my 
use,  day  and  night,  year  in  and  year  out.  And  what 
shall  I  say  of  our  street  railways  and  subways?  I 
once  rode  in  a  subway  train  with  the  president  of  the 
system.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  he  bought  a  ticket, 


22  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

just  as  I  did,  walked  in  and  sat  down.  He  may  have 
occupied  a  little  more  space  than  I  required;  but  as 
far  as  I  was  able  to  judge,  I  traveled  as  fast  as  he 
did,  felt  much  happier  than  he  looked,  and  paid  only 
five  cents  into  the  bargain !  Why,  I  felt  like  a  culprit. 
There  I  was,  utterly  free  from  public  criticism,  un¬ 
terrified  by  lockouts  and  strikes,  gliding  along  forty 
miles  an  hour,  and  all  for  five  copper  cents,  while  the 
man  who  bore  the  burden  of  it  all  had  to  pay  his  own 
fare  and  also  sit  alongside  of  me !  Having  nothing, 
yet  am  I  beginning  to  think,  with  Paul,  that  I  possess 
all  things. 


IV 

Nor  must  I  overlook  my  possessions  in  our  beauti¬ 
ful  parks.  I  love  them  all,  but  I  love  Prospect  Park 
supremely.  I  have  set  out  and  grown  enough  ser- 
monic  plants  in  the  Vale  of  Cashmere,  the  Great 
Meadow,  and  the  Old  Fashioned  Flower  Garden  to 
put  several  and  sundry  congregations  permanently  to 
sleep!  Planners  and  builders  of  our  cities  knew  that 
the  great  majority  of  us  could  not  have  either  large 
or  strikingly  attractive  gardens  and  yards.  There  is 
simply  not  enough  space  on  this  particular  part  of 
the  earth’s  surface.  There  is  plenty  of  room  up  in 
the  atmosphere,  if  you  can  manage  to  live  at  great 
altitudes ;  there  is  plenty  of  room,  also,  on  the  heav¬ 
ing  breast  of  the  Atlantic,  if  you  are  fond  of  leading 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  23 

an  aquatic  life;  but  here  on  the  ground  there  is  so 
much  blasting,  digging,  running,  tooting,  driving, 
yelling,  crunching,  grinding,  jostling,  and  crowding, 
that  yards  are  almost  lost  in  the  chaotic  mix-up. 
Therefore,  we  have  these  splendid  breathing  spaces, 
perfumed  gardens  and  timbered  tracts,  undulating 
swards  and  lilied  ponds,  animal  haunts  and  flower 
houses,  in  our  parks.  Now  I  do  not  own  a  great 
yard ;  but  I  possess  what  is  far  grander  than  any  yard 
owned  by  any  millionaire  on  these  two  islands ;  I  own 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  parks  on  earth.  The  Bor¬ 
ough  of  Brooklyn,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  says  to 
me:  “Mr.  Shannon,  all  these  roads,  walks,  lakes, 
trees,  birds,  and  flowers  are  yours.  You  will  oblige 
us  very  much  by  coming  in  and  enjoying  them.” 

“But,”  some  croaker  protests,  “there  is  a  string 
to  that  invitation.”  “What  is  it?”  I  ask.  “They 
don’t  permit  you  to  take  anything  away,”  he  replies. 
Don’t  they,  indeed?  Not  being  a  vandal,  I  have  no 
inclination  to  haul  away  the  trees,  or  lead  away  the 
lions  and  tigers,  or  steal  the  lily  pond,  or  kidnap  the 
lakes.  Yet  I  defy  the  Mayor,  the  Board  of  Aider- 
men,  the  Borough  President,  and  the  entire  Police 
Department  to  prevent  me  from  carrying  out  of 
Prospect  Park  the  very  best  things  in  it !  Would  you 
like  to  know  what  some  of  those  things  are?  First 
of  all,  studies  in  human  nature.  Old  and  young,  rich 
and  poor,  good  and  bad,  happy  and  sad — all  are  met 


24  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

together  in  this  fragrant  out-of-doors.  Second: 
Memories  of  birds  singing  at  evensong — birds  that 
have  long  since  returned  to  the  Summerlands  of  the 
Unreturning!  Years  ago  I  listened  to  a  robin  sing¬ 
ing  his  vesper  song  to  the  silvery  patter  of  the  falling 
rain.  Recalling  it  now,  it  seems  as  vivid  and  fresh  as 
if  it  were  only  yesterday.  Sitting  there  on  the  edge 
of  the  night  in  his  tree-loft  of  green,  that  little  min¬ 
strel  of  God  sang  into  my  soul  the  sense  of  calm 
breathing  out  of  the  Supreme  Dawn,  brought  me 
little  winds  of  peace  blowing  gently  down  from  the 
tranquil  Hills  of  Morning.  And  then  I  bring  away 
something  else,  too.  I  gather  up  heartfuls,  armfuls 
of  loveliness  and  carry  them  home  with  me.  No  park 
policeman  has  ever  yet  objected  to  that!  But  this  is 
an  essential  part  of  that  sublime  and  moneyless  barter 
in  which  we  may  all  profitably  engage,  improving 
the  timely  admonition  of  Sara  Teasdale : 

“Life  has  loveliness  to  sell, 

All  beautiful  and  splendid  things, 

Blue  waves  whitened  on  a  cliff, 

Soaring  fire  that  sways  and  sings, 

And  children’s  faces  looking  up. 

Holding  wonder  like  a  cup. 

Life  has  loveliness  to  sell, 

Music  like  a  curve  of  gold, 

Scent  of  pine-trees  in  the  rain, 

Eyes  that  love  you,  arms  that  hold. 

And  for  your  spirit’s  still  delight, 

Holy  thoughts  that  star  the  night. 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  25 

Spend  all  you  have  for  loveliness, 

Buy  it  and  never  count  the  cost ; 

For  one  white  singing  hour  of  peace 
Count  many  a  year  of  strife  well  lost, 

And  for  a  breath  of  ecstasy 

Give  all  you  have  been,  or  could  be.” 

v 

Moreover,  I  count  myself  especially  rich  in  my  lur¬ 
ing  libraries — public  repositories  of  the  learning  and 
wisdom  of  countless  ages.  If  matter  is  dead  mind, 
books  are  the  souls  of  the  dead  dressed  up  in  living 
garments  of  glory.  Books  are  the  embodied  voices 
of  the  past  crying  aloud  in  the  teeming  present,  in¬ 
struments  through  which  minds,  ejected  from  brain- 
houses  fallen  to  dust,  still  inspiringly  function. 
Books  are  helpful  servants,  but  autocratic  masters, 
and  no  freeman  has  the  right  to  be  ruled  by  an  auto¬ 
crat.  Doctor  Hillis  told  me  some  years  ago  that  he 
had  stopped  reading  books.  I  replied :  “I  am  not  sur¬ 
prised  at  that.  Does  not  a  man  stop  eating,  after  he 
has  eaten  everything  up  ?”  However,  I  think  that  my 
dear  and  noble  friend  is  still  able  to  read  a  book  now 
and  then!  While  I  have  not  stopped  reading,  I  do 
not  buy  as  many  books  as  I  once  did.  One  reason  is 
this :  Either  I  or  my  books  must  move  out !  There  is 
no  longer  room  for  all  of  us.  Rather  than  dispossess 
old  friends,  it  seems  easier  to  invite  new  ones  in  for 
a  short  visit.  And  this  is  quite  practicable  through 


2 6  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

my  ownership  in  several  libraries.  Think  of  that 
great  building  on  Fifth  Avenue,  with  its  more  than 
thirteen  hundred  thousand  volumes  and  pamphlets — 
a  library  and  art  gallery  under  one  roof.  Do  you 
not  think  old  Plato  would  like  to  have  broken  into 
those  green  literary  pastures  and  ravenously  eaten  his 
way  out?  Not  for  Platos  only,  but  food  is  there  in 
satisfying  abundance  for  ordinary  people  in  pursuit 
of  extraordinary  aims  and  ideals,  angels  that  guide  us 
out  of  the  humdrum  into  the  divinely  enchanting. 
Formerly  there  was  scarcely  a  limit  to  the  number 
of  volumes  that  a  student  could  take  out ;  at  present, 
however,  patrons  are  limited  to  a  definite  number. 
Even  dearer  and  nearer  are  the  libraries  here  at 
home.  I  have  been  in  the  Montague  Branch  so  often 
that  I  fear  my  shadow  will  disfigure  the  walls. 
Besides  the  books,  there  are  the  weekly,  monthly,  and 
quarterly  reviews  from  America  and  foreign  coun¬ 
tries.  What  an  absorbing  exercise  to  sit  down  and 
enjoy  (or  perhaps  quarrel  with)  the  Spectator,  the 
Athenaeum,  the  Edinburgh  Review,  the  Hibbert 
Journal,  and  numerous  other  publications.  Finally, 
if  you  are  afflicted  by  a  kind  of  disease — the  biblio¬ 
maniac  will  readily  understand! — for  rare  manu¬ 
scripts  and  odd  volumes,  the  libraries  will  also  help 
to  assuage,  if  not  entirely  cure,  your  malady.  At  any 
rate,  cured  or  uncured,  you  will  want  to  repeat  “The 
Bibliomaniac’s  Prayer,”  by  Eugene  Field.  Once, 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  27 

when  Doctor  Gunsaulus  was  undergoing  an  acute  at¬ 
tack  of  “bibliomania,”  the  special  symptoms  of  which 
assumed  a  contagious  craving  for  certain  copper¬ 
plates,  (one  never  can  tell  what  extravagant  and 
glowing  forms  the  treacherous  disease  will  take!) 
Field  wrote  this  prayer  and  dedicated  it  to  his  beloved 
friend  and  sorely  afflicted  victim.  The  original 
manuscript  of  the  prayer  is  now  the  property  of  the 
University  of  Chicago  Library,  having  been  pre¬ 
sented  to  it  by  Doctor  Gunsaulus,  the  text  of  which 
follows : 

“Keep  me,  I  pray,  in  wisdom’s  way 
That  I  may  truths  eternal  seek ; 

I  need  protecting  care  today — 

My  purse  is  light,  my  flesh  is  weak. 

So  banish  from  my  erring  heart 
All  baleful  appetites  and  hints 
Of  Satan’s  fascinating  arts, 

Of  first  editions,  and  of  prints. 

Direct  me  in  some  godly  walk 

Which  leads  away  from  bookish  strife, 

That  I  with  pious  deed  and  talk 
May  extra-illustrate  my  life. 

But  if,  O  Lord,  it  pleaseth  Thee 
To  keep  me  in  temptation’s  way, 

I  humbly  crave  that  I  may  be 
Most  notably  beset  today. 

Let  my  temptation  be  a  book 

Which  I  shall  purchase,  hold,  and  keep, 
Whereon  when  other  men  shall  look, 

They’ll  wail  to  know  I  got  it  cheap. 


28  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Oh,  let  it  such  a  volume  be 

As  in  rare  copperplates  abounds — 

Large  paper,  tall,  and  fair  to  see, 

Uncut,  unique,  unknown  to  Lowndes.” 

VI 

Henley  speaks  of  Romney’s  work  as  “something 
which  is  only  almost  done.”  Still,  I  must  not  finish 
this  bare  outline  of  my  material  capital  without  men¬ 
tioning  the  “little  towns”  I  own.  Country  born  and 
bred,  I  love  the  cities.  There  is  soul-shaking  power 
in  their  terrific  energy,  their  splendor  and  squalor, 
their  righteousness  and  wickedness,  their  wealth  and 
poverty,  their  pathos  and  tragedy.  But  between  the 
cities — the  inspirers  of  the  cities,  the  saviors  of  the 
cities — are  the  little  towns,  villages,  and  hamlets  that 
dot  the  land  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Sometimes  they 
sit  back  from  the  great  highways,  as  a  vine-covered 
cottage  sits  back  from  the  roadside ;  sometimes  they 
lie  hidden  among  the  mountains,  like  precious  gems 
waiting  to  share  their  beauty  with  every  practiced 
eye ;  sometimes  they  nestle  along  the  plains,  sweet  as 
the  golden  wheatfields  billowing  away  to  the  horizon ; 
sometimes  they  kneel  upon  the  banks  of  a  mountain 
river,  most  of  the  citizens  never  having  a  glimpse  of 
their  rustic  river’s  wide  and  hospitable  sea;  some¬ 
times  they  bow  in  quiet,  nun-like  valleys,  faithfully 
guarded  by  high  hills,  over  whose  peace-crowned 


A  Moneyless  Magnate  29 

heights  discordant  voices  never  sound.  But  oh !  my 
little  towns — wherever  you  be,  north,  south,  east,  or 
west — the  very  thought  of  you  brings  me  the  bread 
of  beauty,  the  wine  of  hope,  the  apples  of  Eden. 
Long  ago  Emerson  suggested  that  it  is  embarrassing 
to  wake  up  some  morning  and  discover  that  some¬ 
body  else  has  expressed  your  own  thought,  even 
though  it  is  expressed  better  than  you  yourself  could 
express  it.  Nevertheless,  I  am  quite  willing  to  par¬ 
don  Hilda  Morris  for  visiting  me  with  such  an  em¬ 
barrassment  in  the  form  of  her  poem  called  “The 
Little  Towns” : 

“Oh,  little  town  in  Arkansas  and  little  town  in  Maine, 
And  little  sheltered  valley  town  and  hamlet  on  the 
plain, 

Salem,  Jackson,  Waukesha,  and  Brookville,  and 
Peru, 

San  Mateo,  and  Irontown,  and  Lake,  and  Waterloo, 
Little  town  we  smiled  upon  and  loved  for  simple 
ways, 

Quiet  streets  and  garden  beds  and  friendly  sunlit 
days, 

Out  of  you  the  soldiers  came, 

Little  town  of  homely  name. 

Young  and  strong  and  brave  with  laughter, 

They  saw  truth  and  followed  after. 

Little  town,  the  birth  of  them 
Makes  you  kin  to  Bethlehem ! 

Little  town  where  Jimmy  Brown  ran  the  grocery 
store, 


30  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Little  town  where  Manuel  fished  along  the  shore, 
Where  Russian  Steve  was  carpenter,  and  Sandy  Pat 
McQuade 

Worked  all  day  in  overalls  at  his  mechanic’s  trade. 
Where  Allen  Perkins  practiced  law,  and  John,  Judge 
Harper’s  son, 

Planned  a  little  house  for  two  that  never  shall  be 
done — 

Little  town,  you  gave  them  all, 

Rich  and  poor  and  great  and  small, 

Bred  them  clean  and  straight  and  strong, 

Sent  them  forth  to  right  the  wrong. 

Little  town,  their  glorious  death 
Makes  you  kin  to  Nazareth !” 


II 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard 


WHILE  passing  a  certain  house,  my  eyes  rested 
upon  a  statue  of  Beethoven  in  the  rear  of  it. 
At  first  I  was  keenly  aware  of  the  disharmony  of  the 
thing.  Here  was  one  of  the  immortal  names  in 
music;  and  here,  also,  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and 
in  a  yard  distinguished  for  nothing  save  the  com¬ 
poser’s  head  done  in  stone,  was  the  silent,  stony, 
majestic  face  of  one  whose  very  name  is  synonymous 
for  moving  melodies. 

As  already  intimated,  my  first  impression  was  a 
kind  of  mental  discord,  a  feeling  that  the  sense  of 
fitness  had  been  violated.  But  I  hold  that  opinion  no 
longer.  Many  times  since  have  I  gone  by  that  house ; 
each  passing  has  tended  to  do  away  with  the  feeling 
of  inappropriateness.  Now,  remembering  the  de¬ 
light  of  seeing  Beethoven  in  his  back  yard,  I  go  out 
of  my  way  for  the  pleasurable  sensation  of  resting 
my  eyes  upon  that  materialized  symphony  in  stone. 
There  he  sits,  calmly  looking  out  on  his  surround¬ 
ings.  He  seems  quietly  determined  to  turn  them  all 
— the  ugly  and  the  beautiful,  the  chords  and  the  dis¬ 
cords — into  rolling  rhythms  of  harmony. 

3i 


32  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

It  may  be  that  my  inward  change  was  wrought  by 
the  words  of  a  quiet  man  to  whom  I  unbosomed  my 
original  repulsion.  “Discord!”  he  exclaimed,  with 
scarcely  any  sign  of  exclamation  in  his  convincing 
tones.  “There’s  no  discord  at  all.  Beethoven  needs 
the  back  yard;  the  back  yard  needs  Beethoven;  and 
we  need  both.”  Unable  to  forget  the  man’s  words, 
I  have  decided  to  set  down  some  random  reflections 
upon  Master  Beethoven  in  the  back  yard. 

i 

“Beethoven  needs  the  back  yard.”  Well,  at  any 
rate  the  master  was  acquainted  with  the  back  yard 
of  things  long  before  anybody  dreamed  of  chiseling 
him  in  stone.  His  father  was  a  drunkard;  his 
mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  cook — which  is  re¬ 
called,  in  this  connection,  just  to  remind  ourselves 
what  glorious  things  proceed  from  the  kitchen;  he 
was  deaf  before  middle  life;  he  endured  the  stupidity 
of  a  churlish  brother.  What  a  delicious  story  is  that 
of  his  brother  calling  upon  the  composer  and  leaving 
his  card  worded  thus  : 

JOHANN  VAN  BEETHOVEN, 

LAND  PROPRIETOR. 

On  returning  home  the  musician  found  the  card, 
wrote  the  following  words  on  the  opposite  side,  and 
sent  it  back  to  his  pompously  stupid  kinsman  : 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  33 


LUDWIG  VAN  BEETHOVEN, 

BRAIN  PROPRIETOR. 

One  might  indefinitely  extend  the  list  of  ugly  back 
yards  through  which  the  mighty  genius  was  doomed 
to  pass  in  his  pilgrimage  across  the  years.  There 
were  jealous  teachers;  there  were  designing  women; 
there  was  that  scapegrace  of  a  nephew;  there  were 
kinglets  and  princelets  and — well,  so  many  glorious 
and  inglorious  obstacles  in  his  way  that  it  is  simply 
enchanting  to  stand  at  a  meaningful  historic  dis¬ 
tance  and  see  him  overleap  them. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  think,  with  my  deep- 
seeing  friend,  that  Beethoven  needed  the  back  yard. 
How  much  did  life’s  back  yard  have  to  do  in  lending 
the  deathless  note  to  his  compositions?  Having 
asked  that  question,  we  are  thrust  headlong  into  the 
mystery  of  human  life.  Not,  if  you  please,  human 
life  in  its  celebrated  expressions — not  the  Beethovens, 
nor  the  Shakespeares,  nor  the  Lincolns  only;  but 
worthful,  red-souled,  clean-motived,  high-minded 
human  life  in  its  common,  everyday,  universal  might 
and  majesty. 

Once  I  went  to  minister  to  a  sick  woman.  There 
were  miles  and  miles  of  gray  stone  to  travel,  remind¬ 
ing  one  of  Thomson’s  “City  of  Dreadful  Night.” 
The  house  was  not  much,  but  it  was  artistically  tidy, 
immaculate  in  its  cleanliness.  Occupied  by  two 


34  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

maiden  sisters,  they  had  fought  with  poverty,  hard¬ 
ship,  and  menacing  environment  the  long  years 
through.  And  now  one  of  them  was  desperately  ill. 
But  the  well  one — the  one  who  was  still  struggling  to 
keep  the  vanishing  remainders  of  their  home-life 
together — was  not  content  to  have  a  doctor  and  her 
own  watchful  love  at  her  sister’s  beck  and  call,  day 
and  night.  A  trained  nurse  must  also  draw  upon  her 
scanty  savings.  Reminded  that  perhaps  this  was  an 
unnecessary  expense  and  that  there  were  “rainy 
days”  ahead  for  her,  she  said :  “What  are  a  few  dol¬ 
lars  to  me,  after  my  sister  is  gone?”  With  the  going 
of  her  sister,  a  part  of  herself  was  being  passed  on 
also — a  something  which  neither  few  dollars  nor 
many  could  alter  in  the  least. 

Within  that  toiling  woman’s  face  there  was  a 
power  of  immortal  reserve — a  splendor,  a  radiance, 
a  Godlikeness — that  one  could  well  go  far  to  see,  and 
be  handsomely  overpaid  at  the  end  of  his  journey. 
What,  for  example,  is  “the  light  of  setting  suns”  to 
the  light  of  love  that  beamed  in  her  patient  eye? 
What  is  the  fragrance  of  heliotropes  to  the  aroma 
of  self-forgetfulness  distilled  from  her  heart?  What 
is  the  grandeur  of  mountain  summits  to  the  moral 
height  of  her  unfaltering  will?  Unacquainted  with 
the  luxury  of  self-dispraise,  as  Wordsworth  might 
say,  she  was  so  unconsciously  and  yet  so  nobly 
planned,  that  any  soul  having  an  appetite  for  what 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  35 

is  finely  beautiful  could  not  possibly  have  missed  it 
here  in  this  bloomingly  spiritual  back  yard. 

“But  there  was  nothing  unusual  in  her  unselfish¬ 
ness, ’’  the  cynic  may  interpose.  “Such  cases  are  very 
common.”  And  is  not  the  cynic  half  right?  At  the 
same  time  does  not  all  half-rightness  disclose  the  in¬ 
exhaustible  wonder  of  the  wholly  and  holy  right  ?  It 
is  even  so  here.  For  the  unusualness  of  unselfishness 
could  only  be  truly  seen  by  its  absence.  Just  let  the 
world  jog  along  a  single  day  without  these  common¬ 
place  and  usual  tokens  of  goodwill  and  at  nightfall 
our  planet  would  be  conspicuous  by  reason  of  the 
enlarged  areas  of  hell  upon  it.  Therefore,  the  deadly 
and  deadening  power  of  the  familiar  is  to  be  shunned 
like  a  plague.  The  fact  is,  we  have  learned  to  call 
that  something  genius  in  people  who  can  paint  a 
halo  around  the  brow  of  the  ordinary.  Is  not  this  in 
itself  sufficient  proof  that,  beyond  all  cavil,  there  is 
really  no  ordinary;  everything  is  extraordinary,  as 
every  perceptive  and  receptive  nature  thrillingly 
knows.  It  is  just  our  ordinary,  hum-drum,  no-vision 
of  things  that  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  snub  the 
back  yard  with  its  commanding  Beethoven. 

The  reaches  of  our  Lord  and  Master  into  this 
prolific  realm  are,  of  course,  unparalleled.  Christ’s 
awareness  of  the  living  universe  is  immense.  Any¬ 
where  and  anytime  He  throws  a  window  open  toward 
the  Infinite.  It  is  all  the  more  impressive  by  the  very 


36  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

economy  of  the  words  He  employs  in  reporting  His 
world-consciousness.  Adjectives  are  not  popular  in 
the  Master’s  vocabulary.  He  is  so  perfectly  alive 
that  He  seems  fearful  lest  He  should  waste  a  breath 
of  His  being  through  a  meaningless  word.  Reality 
pressed  so  strongly  upon  the  centers  of  His  soul  that 
nouns,  uncolored  and  unqualified,  are  the  verbal 
sluiceways  through  which  He  pours  the  tides  of 
eternal  life.  Yet,  according  to  accepted  standards, 
did  not  Jesus  spend  His  earthly  career  in  the  back 
yards  of  the  world?  This  fact,  commonplace  as  a 
matter  of  history,  becomes  positively  acute  with 
wonder  and  awe  for  every  thoughtful  person  who 
tries  to  grasp  it.  Born  in  a  manger,  toiling  with  His 
hands,  teaching  by  lakeside  and  in  market-place, 
surrounded  by  a  company  of  unlettered  peasants, 
frowned  upon  by  the  important  and  misunderstood 
by  the  ignorant,  forsaken  at  last  by  His  own  and 
crucified  by  His  enemies,  the  story,  in  view  of  its 
deepening,  transforming  hold  on  the  human  heart, 
is  almost  incredible  as  it  is  entirely  unimaginable. 
John  Stuart  Mill  is  right — only  the  fact  of  Jesus  can 
account  for  the  story  of  Jesus.  The  human  mind, 
said  Mill,  was  incapable  of  inventing  it.  One  might 
as  well  talk  of  inventing  stars  or  oceans  or  mountains 
as  of  inventing  the  character,  words,  and  deeds  of  the 
God-Man ! 

And  not  the  least  invigorating  and  uplifting 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  37 

thing  about  it  all  is  this :  He  needed  the  back  yard ; 
which  is  just  another  way  of  saying  that  God  Him¬ 
self,  for  any  truly  humanizing  revelation  of  His 
Godhead,  could  not  avoid  the  back  yard.  Personally, 
I  have  scant  sympathy  with  that  theological  doggerel 
which  pictures  God  as  out  in  the  universe  looking  for 
Himself,  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  of  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  a  kind  of  hectic,  emaciated  ghostly  be¬ 
coming,  without  having  fully  arrived !  That  sort  of 
thinking  advertises  the  quality  of  mental  milk-and- 
water  mushiness  some  of  us  are  capable  of  stirring 
up.  Of  a  different  grain,  however,  are  those  New 
Testament  strata  of  thought  upon  which  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  immovably  rests.  “Though  He  was  a  Son” — 
yes,  the  Son,  the  only  Begotten  Son — “yet  learned 
obedience  by  the  things  which  He  suffered.”  And 
what  were  the  things  He  suffered?  Some  of  them, 
unquestionably,  were  these :  Human  dullness,  mean¬ 
ness,  slander,  hatred,  jealousy,  lying,  misunderstand¬ 
ing,  misinterpretation.  He  suffered  them  all,  and 
some  of  them  in  the  Bethany  household.  “For  even 
His  brethren  did  not  believe  on  Him.”  When  He 
died  on  Calvary,  His  brothers,  James  and  Jude,  in 
common  with  every  other  mortal,  thought  that  an 
end  had  been  made  of  Him.  More  than  once,  His 
mother  undertook  to  revise  His  plans,  being  naturally 
and  motheringly  proud  of  such  a  Son.  Verily,  the 
New  Testament  is  full  of  the  things  He  suffered. 


38  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Whatever  the  un  fathomed  immensities  contained  in 
the  unique  and  solitary  death  on  Calvary,  that  was 
not  all  He  suffered.  But — in  all  and  through  all  the 
things  He  suffered — He  learned;  and  He  learned, 
though  He  was  a  Son — the  Son  of  God ! 

So  I  infer  that  there  was  more  than  the  mere 
human  need — awful  and  profound  as  that  is — of  our 
Infinite  Beethoven  in  the  back  yards  of  time.  If  God 
underwent  a  new  experience  in  the  Incarnation,  as 
Christian  philosophy  and  revelation  lead  us  to  believe, 
then  the  back  yard,  and  all  that  it  signifies,  has  taken 
unto  itself  a  value  that  the  human  generations  can¬ 
not  exhaust.  What  if  the  back  yard  has  already  be¬ 
come  a  suburb  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  and  we  know 
it  not  ?  The  final  greatness,  argues  a  philosopher,  is 
not  with  the  man  who  alters  matter  but  with  the  man 
who  alters  mind.  And  does  not  the  true  altering  of 
mind  rest  with  Christ,  and  Christ  alone?  It  is  a 
gigantic  task.  It  will  require  other  ages  and  other 
worlds  than  ours  for  its  complete  realization.  But 
both  the  ages  and  the  worlds  belong  to  Him.  Con¬ 
sidering  our  own  world,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  dis¬ 
cern  how  and  where  He  is  altering  its  mind  for  the 
best.  But  He  is,  just  the  same.  Not  without  loss — 
great  and  immeasurable,  perhaps  irretrievable  loss; 
but  none  the  less  with  gain — deep,  golden,  and  im¬ 
perishable. 

There  are  more  things,  truly,  in  the  back  yard 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  39 

than  the  casual  observer  sees.  Oh,  yes,  the  wash  is 
there,  to  be  sure!  And  the  rubbish!  And  the 
croaker !  But  the  clothes  are  in  process  of  cleansing ; 
underneath  the  rubbish  there  is  the  unspeakable  mys¬ 
tery  of  life;  at  the  feet  of  the  croaker  blooms  the 
crocus,  and  he  sees  it  not.  So  I  am  glad,  after  all, 
that  Beethoven  needs  the  back  yard.  For  one  thing, 
his  deaf  ears  may  hear  better  there.  Anyway,  the 
stars  look  down  upon  him  by  night;  the  sun  lights 
up  his  forward-looking  gaze  by  day ;  April  rains  wash 
his  massive  cheeks,  as  if  tenderly  striving  to  mingle 
their  drops  with  tears  not  yet  all  unwept;  playful 
winds  whirl  about  his  dead  ears,  and  he  looks  as  if  he 
might  be  listening  to  harmonies  that  would  “create  a 
soul  under  the  ribs  of  death.”  I  am  grateful  that  he 
beckons  me  to  come  and  visit  with  him  betimes. 
Standing  in  his  mute  presence,  his  lips  of  stone  seem 
to  be  saying :  “Who  has  more  obedience  than  I  mas¬ 
ters  me,  though  he  should  not  raise  his  finger. 
Round  him  I  must  revolve  by  the  gravitation  of 
spirits.”  And  then — 

“All  suddenly  the  wind  comes  soft, 

And  Spring  is  here  again ; 

And  the  hawthorn  quickens  with  buds  of  green, 
And  my  heart  with  buds  of  pain.” 

Yet  is  there  not  something  poignantly  creative  in 
these  “buds  of  pain”  ?  Does  not  one  look  with  other, 


40  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

deeper  eyes  upon  the  groaning,  travailing  universe? 
Even  groaning  within  ourselves,  do  we  not  already 
have  the  “first-fruits  of  the  Spirit”  ?  If  so,  then  the 
crimson  buds  of  pain  are  unrolling  into  spiritual 
buds  of  green!  Wherefore,  we  shall  make  no  terms 
with  Giant  Despair  and  his  obstreperous  myrmidons. 
Rather,  we  shall  go  on  our  way  in  quietness  and 
hope,  reinterpreting  the  pilgrim-rune  of  David  Gray¬ 
son  :  “I  am  living  deep  again” 

ii 

“The  back  yard  needs  Beethoven.”  That  was  the 
second  idea  flashed  out  by  my  unassuming  monitor. 
Just  what  he  meant  by  it,  or  all  that  he  meant,  I  do 
not  pretend  to  understand.  But  it  is  one  of  those 
cryptic  sayings  which  lend  themselves  to  various 
interpretations. 

Did  he  mean  that  there  is  a  kind  of  drab,  monot¬ 
onous  variety  in  the  life  of  the  back  yard  that  needs 
to  be  awakened  to  something  higher  by  the  breath  of 
the  artistic?  If  he  did,  my  answer  was  ready. 
“What!”  I  should  have  exclaimed.  “Do  you  mean 
to  say  that  here,  close  to  the  heart  of  things,  there  is 
any  need  whatever  of  art?  Look  at  Mother  Nature 
waking  her  children  up !  Is  it  not  a  sight  for  gods 
and  men  to  see  then  scrambling  out  of  their  wintry 
sleep?  There  is  that  dandelion  this  moment  thrust¬ 
ing  its  saffron  bonnet  through  the  soil ;  there  is  that 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  41 

dream-haunted  hedge,  alive  with  a  million  buds,  fair¬ 
ly  opening  their  green  eyes  upon  the  April-colored 
world;  here  is  this  emerald-streaked  carpet  of  grass, 
daily  unrolling  its  velvety  splendor  in  patterns  of 
soothing,  nutritious  greenness;  there  is  that  lazy 
worm,  capable  of  losing  both  its  head  and  tail  and 
then  uncomplainingly  growing  each  again,  as  if 
worm-surgery  were  foreordained  to  keep  human 
surgery  on  the  brink  of  despair.  And  then — look! 
quick!  There  goes  the  first  bluebird,  like  a  winged 
flower  dipped  in  vats  of  heavenly  blue !  What  is  art, 
if  you  please,  to  all  this?” 

From  the  harvest  of  his  quiet  eye,  my  friend 
seemed  to  say:  “Nature  can  only  come  to  its  deeper 
self  through  the  aid  of  the  human.  Apart  from 
Beethoven,  how  long  would  it  take  your  flowers  and 
worms  and  bluebirds  to  arrange  themselves  into  a 
Ninth  Symphony?” 

He  was  getting  me  into  the  deep  waters  of 
thought,  beyond  all  question ;  so  deep,  indeed,  that  I 
had  no  mind  to  follow  him  just  then.  Like  a  bare¬ 
foot  boy  with  his  first  Maytide  vision  of  the  old 
swimming  hole,  I,  too,  was  whooping  things  up  in 
the  quivering  out-of-doors.  For  who  dares  to  say 
that  there  is  no  excitement  in  watching  the  brown, 
wintry  earth  turn  green  before  our  very  eyes  ?  Who 
is  willing  to  confess  that  there  is  no  emotion  whatever 
in  considering  the  marvel  of  unfolding  buds?  And 


< 


42  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

who,  verily,  could  behold  that  feathered  miracle 
named  the  first  bluebird  in  Spring  and  not  fanatically 
believe  in  God  and  angels  and  saints  and  fairies  and 
everything  else  that  is  lovely  and  of  good  report? 

Still,  I  am  willing  to  concede,  notwithstanding  my 
unbridled  fanaticism  toward  prophetic  bluebirds  and 
evangelical  shrubbery,  that  this  matter  of  'the  back 
yard’s  need  of  Beethoven  cannot  be  ignored.  For 
are  not  the  back  yards  of  the  world  pathetically  in 
need  of  an  interpreter?  One  can  scarcely  restrict 
the  application  of  this  thought;  it  is  so  wide-winged, 
so  class-defying,  so  vastly  human  in  its  appeal. 
Plainly,  the  need  of  an  interpreting,  harmony- 
haunted  Beethoven  is  universal.  Take  my  two 
friends  of  “the  cloth” — well-worn  cloth,  too,  very 
black,  very  long,  and  very  shiny!  I  saw  them  for 
the  last  time  as  they  rounded  a  curve  on  the  hill-road 
in  that  long-vanished  West  Virginia  morning.  I 
was  on  my  way  to  my  first  circuit,  a  callow  youth, 
with  all  the  extra  meanings  attendant  upon  callow¬ 
ness.  The  saving  grace  of  it  all  is,  in  the  mellow 
light  of  memory,  I  was  so  eager  to  make  the  venture 
that  I  spent  a  well-nigh  sleepless  night.  Long  before 
the  morning  broke  its  heart  of  silver  over  the  Ken¬ 
tucky  hills,  I  was  fording  the  mountain  river  that 
separates  West  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  My  wagon 
was  not  hitched  to  a  star,  but  to  an  old  bay  mare, 
driven  by  a  faithful,  half-witted  servant  who  lived 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  43 

in  the  home  of  my  beloved  Grandmother  Sullivan. 
Within  a  few  hours  I  reached  the  railroad  station 
and  the  train  that  bore  me  on  my  way  rejoicing. 

It  was  on  this  first  lap  of  the  journey  that,  quite 
suddenly,  these  two  veteran  scouts,  who  had  already 
guarded  the  lone  outposts  of  Zion  for  three  or  four 
decades,  came  driving  around  a  bend  in  the  road. 
Their  greetings  and  godspeeds  were  memorably  cor¬ 
dial  ;  their  “God  bless  you,  brother !”  and  “May  you 
follow  in  the  footsteps  of  your  noble  Grandfather !” 
— these  are  still  soft  and  vivid  notes  in  the  music  of 
memory. 

Now,  those  two  noblemen  of  God  probably 
worked  their  lives  away  at  a  yearly  average  compen¬ 
sation  of  less  than  five  hundred  dollars.  One  of  my 
own  appointments  having  paid  me  twenty-five  cents 
— a  shining,  silver  quarter  of  a  dollar  for  the  year ! — 
I  rate  myself  an  authority  in  estimating  such  bud¬ 
gets  !  But  inasmuch  as  the  problem  of  keeping  soul 
and  body  together  has  grown  more  acute,  even  for 
ministers,  in  these  latter  days,  I  am  setting  the 
stipend  of  those  two  circuit-riders  a  trifle  high.  Yet, 
it  is  not  of  their  pitiable  salary  that  I  am  thinking, 
chiefly,  at  a  distance  of  twenty  years.  I  am  think¬ 
ing,  rather,  of  this  :  They  had  stuff — genuine,  clean- 
through,  human  Godlike  stuff — in  them.  They  were 
big,  burly,  oaklike,  hickory  souls  that  knew  how  to 
wrestle  with  the  spiritual  storms  that  swept  through 


44  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

those  lonely,  whispering  hills.  Up  the  hollows  and 
down  the  creeks  and  over  the  mountain  spurs  and 
into  the  schoolhouses  and  log  cabins  they  carried  the 
Good  News  of  God.  Fleet-footed  couriers  were 
they  sent  straight  from  the  News  Bureau  of  the 
Heavens.  They  reported  what  they  had  seen  and 
heard  in  first  editions  direct  from  heart-presses 
mightily  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  There  was 
considerable  crudeness,  to  be  sure;  but  the  down¬ 
right,  challenging,  smiting,  eloquent  reality  of  the 
thing — that  is  what  stabs  the  human  soul  wide 
awake ! 

But  oh !  the  pathetic  incompleteness  of  their  lives. 
There  were  hungry  depths  within  them  forever  un¬ 
fed.  There  were  suppressed  longings  but  brokenly 
realized.  There  were  high  thoughts,  stammeringly 
spoken  at  best,  yet  refreshingly  original  withal.  Was 
it  because  the  ears  of  the  speakers  lay  closer  to  the 
nature  of  things  than  is  customary  in  a  more  driving 
and  mechanical  age?  “To  believe  your  own  thought, 
to  believe  that  what  is  true  for  you  in  your  private 
heart,  is  true  for  all  men — that  is  genius.”  That, 
also,  is  one  of  the  shining  memory-nuggets  I  picked 
up  during  those  hill-days.  Yet  do  not  the  men  and 
the  saying  prove  the  necessity  of  an  interpreting 
Beethoven  in  our  back  yards  of  the  world?  Nature 
leaves  so  many  things  unsaid;  life  begins  and  ends 
with  a  host  of  problems  unexplained.  Look  where 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  45 

we  will,  the  interpreter  is  much  in  request.  We  do 
well  not  to  forget  the  ‘‘sky-born  music”;  we  do  ill 
if  we  fail  to  remember  the  music  that  comes  from 
behind  the  sky. 

Yet  my  friends,  who  long  ago  laid  their  tired 
bodies  down  within  the  bosom  of  those  wooded  hills, 
are  not  the  only  ones  requiring  an  interpreter.  In¬ 
deed,  these  suppressed  lives  do  not  argue  so  insist¬ 
ently,  after  all,  for  a  clew  to  the  tangled  skein  of 
human  mysteries,  as  the  unfolded,  ripened  men  and 
women  of  the  ages.  If  Paul  could  make  such  apos¬ 
tolic  gestures  in  less  than  threescore  years  and  ten, 
what  might  he  not  accomplish  in  threescore  and  a 
million?  If  Shakespeare  could  drag  into  the  open 
such  ordinarily  concealed  and  yet  such  extraordi¬ 
narily  great  thoughts,  within  less  than  threescore 
years,  what  may  he  not  report  as  he  becomes 
seonianly  familiar  with  the  Archives  of  Eternity? 
If  Frederick  Robertson  could  think  and  preach  so 
gloriously  in  less  than  twoscore  years,  shall  we  be¬ 
come  foolhardy  enough  to  set  any  limits  to  the  ser¬ 
mons  and  expositions  he  may  make  after  spending 
ten  thousand  years  in  the  presence  of  the  Original 
Text?  If  Raphael  could  paint  a  Transfiguration 
while  yet  scarcely  removed  from  the  swaddling  bands 
of  his  earthly  youth,  what  may  he  not  achieve  in  a 
universe  whose  solar  sunsets  are  relatively  blurred 
canvases,  knowing  that  in  the  spaces  there  are  flam- 


46  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

ing  blue  suns  as  well  as  flaming  red  suns — worlds  so 
unimaginably  colored  that  our  seven  prismatic  colors 
do  not  begin  to  tell  the  beauty  of  them? 

Anyway,  Beethoven  himself  needs  an  interpreter 
even  more  than  the  spinner  of  jazz  melodies.  And 
was  he  not  grandly  sure  of  finding  Him?  Equal 
to  any  music  Beethoven  ever  composed,  I  think,  are 
those  last  and  dying  words  of  his,  spoken  as  he  was 
mysteriously  moving  out  of  his  house  with  its  dead 
ears  into  his  house  not  made  with  hands:  “I  shall 
hear  in  Heaven “Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  Him. 
But  God  hath  revealed  them  unto  us  by  His  Spirit.” 
I  am  more  than  half  inclined  to  wonder  if  there 
are  not  blended  prophetic  and  apostolic  deeps  hidden 
away  in  these  words  which  can  never  be  entirely 
sounded  by  the  psychologist  and  the  psychoanalyst? 
If  the  back  yard  really  needs  Beethoven,  the  back 
yard  verily  has  Him!  “The  sun,”  says  Bacon, 
“though  it  passes  through  dirty  places,  yet  remains 
as  pure  as  before.”  I  wonder  if  music,  though  it 
passes  through  dull,  human  ears,  remains  not  only 
as  musical  as  it  was  before,  but  obeying  what  the 
great  German  was  fond  of  calling  the  law  of  spirit¬ 
ual  increase  in  the  universe,  becomes  even  more  mu¬ 
sical  ?  Well,  anyway,  the  Infinite  Beethoven  knows. 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  47 


hi 

“The  world  needs  both.”  Without  too  large  a 
generalization  as  to  what  is  implied  by  “the  world,” 
I  prefer  to  confine  the  meaning  to  the  speaker  and  to 
myself.  Strikingly  minute  editions  of  the  world  as 
we  are,  this  method  offers  the  advantage  of  being 
concrete.  Human  life,  being  what  it  is,  and  in  the 
process  of  an  immeasurable  becoming,  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  all  of  us  need  both — Beetho¬ 
ven,  who  speaks  for  the  ideal,  and  the  back  yard, 
which  hardly  needs  to  speak  for  the  practical,  being 
in  itself  so  loud-toned  that  we  can  with  difficulty 
miss  its  meaning. 

Are  not  most  of  us  inclined  to  be  somewhat  impa¬ 
tient  with  the  ideal,  with  the  larger  significance  inev¬ 
itably  attaching  to  life  and  things?  Particularly  is 
this  true  in  a  time  such  as  ours,  when  the  planet  is 
in  a  sort  of  human  upheaval,  when  there  is  so  much 
brawny  work  to  be  done,  and  rather  brusquely  crowd¬ 
ing  us  on  every  side.  But  does  not  the  very  fact 
that  there  is  so  much  to  be  done  make  it  all  the  more 
imperative  that  we  keep  perfectly  clear  the  reason 
why  so  much  should  be  done  ?  That  world-deep  why 
hurls  us  immediately  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
so-called  practical.  We  are  at  once  in  the  presence 
of  Beethoven — of  music,  of  art,  of  prayer,  of  faith, 
of  hope,  of  love,  of  soul,  of  God.  Why,  then, 


48  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

should  the  millions  moil  and  toil?  To  build  faster 
railways,  more  efficient  banks,  larger  machine  shops, 
taller,  sun-hiding  skyscrapers,  more  sanitary  cities, 
more  convenient  houses  ?  That  we  may  do  all  these 
and  not  do  enough,  is  a  commonplace  of  progress, 
ethics,  and  religion ;  but  that  while  doing  all  these  we 
may  also  become  dead  souls  is  the  spiritual  revenge 
which  the  universe  invariably  takes  upon  us.  “How 
shall  we  escape,  if  we  neglect  so  great  a  salvation ?” 
The  question  is  not  simply  evangelical ;  it  is  cosmic, 
scientific,  historic,  profoundly  human.  And  the 
answer  comes,  from  a  thousand  voices,  that  there 
is  no  possible  escape — not  as  long  as  the  universe 
bears  the  semblance  of  order.  Every  day  I  meet 
cultured,  successful  men  who  have  no  more  of  a 
spiritual  roof  over  their  heads  than  the  veriest  hobo, 
who  boasts  not  a  single  physical  shingle  for  his.  As 
I  view  it,  the  latter  is  replete  with  physical  and 
human  pathos;  but  the  former  is  black  with  terrible 
spiritual  tragedy.  For  the  physical  tramp  is  sordidly, 
repulsively  dead;  the  spiritual  tramp  is  smoothly, 
subtly,  gayly,  icily,  splendidly,  hopelessly  dead, 
though  unburied.  Frequently  he  is  a  cynic;  under¬ 
neath  his  fine  exterior  there  is  dourness  and  sourness ; 
and  I  modestly  submit  that  a  pickled  cynic,  though 
preserved  in  a  strong  brine  of  gold,  can  never  acquire 
a  delicious  taste  on  any  planet  in  the  known  universe. 

Truly,  my  friend,  we  need  Beethoven;  our  human 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  49 

nature  must  have  superhuman  nature  within,  around, 
and  underneath  it.  “It  is  the  province  of  a  great 
poet,”  Wordsworth  once  said  to  Klopstock,  “to  raise 
people  up  to  his  own  level,  not  to  descend  to  theirs.” 
It  were  not  less  truly  said  of  the  statesman,  the 
Christian  preacher  and  reformer,  or  indeed  of  any 
Christian  whatsoever.  But  to  lift  people  at  all — 
aye,  there’s  the  rub !  If  there  is  so  much  sheer  dead 
weight  in  any  other  realm  known  to  avoirdupois, 
average  people  like  ourselves,  people  whom  we  meet 
in  the  stress  and  press  of  everyday,  seem  to  be  com¬ 
placently  unaware  of  it. 

And  yet  there  is  a  Lifter !  He  carries  the  worlds  on 
His  shoulders  and  His  sin-smitten,  death-wounded 
children  in  His  heart.  If  the  old  Greek  geometrician 
discovered  the  principle  of  the  lever,  declaring,  “Give 
me  where  to  stand,  and  I  will  move  the  world,”  our 
Uplifted  Beethoven  reveals  the  moral  center  of  God 
and  Man,  takes  His  stand  upon  it,  saying :  “And  I, 
if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  Myself.”  Thus,  while  I  can  see  the  dead  weight 
in  the  average  man,  especially  as  it  does  not  require 
much  visualizing  power  to  do  that,  He  senses,  even 
from  his  riven,  shuddering  hill  of  red  rain,  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  all  men  being  lifted  to  heights  beyond 
which  heights  there  are  none — Himself ! 

So,  I  think,  we  need  both — the  ideal  and  the  real. 
The  problem  of  life  is  to  keep  the  two  in  proper 


50  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

focus.  Our  capacity  for  spilling  over  on  the  wrong 
side  of  each  is  ever  with  us  in  exasperating  dimen¬ 
sions.  Some  want  to  be  hermits  and  others  never 
want  to  be  out  of  human  haunts;  some  are  shriveled- 
up  book-worms  and  others  carry  brains  alive  with 
the  worms  of  ignorance;  some  are  riotously  social¬ 
istic  and  others  are  egocentrically  individualistic; 
some  want  to  pray  all  the  time  and  others  want  to 
work  all  the  time.  And  so  we  go — mis-seeing,  mis¬ 
doing,  mis-living.  Yet  the  unwithering  secret  of 
life  is  the  legitimate  marriage  of  these  two  facts, 
which  are  deeply  one  at  heart.  I  once  saw  a  librarian 
have  a  child  expelled  from  the  reading-room  of  a 
library  while  the  librarian  himself  kept  right  on  talk¬ 
ing  louder  than  a  half  dozen  children.  Thus  the 
abyss  between  theory  and  practice  must  be  continu¬ 
ously  bridged  over.  But  the  Bridge-builder  has 
come ;  He  has  never  gone  away ;  He  has  wisely  van¬ 
ished  behind  the  horizons  of  sense  that  He  may 
more  perfectly,  universally,  and  transfiguringly  home 
within.  That  myth  of  the  sibyl  and  Tarquin  the 
Proud  is  instructive  here.  Having  nine  books,  she 
offered  to  sell  them  to  the  king.  As  he  refused  to 
buy  them,  she  went  away  and  burned  three.  Then 
she  came  a  second  time,  demanding  as  much  for  the 
six  as  for  the  nine.  Still  the  king  refused  to  pur¬ 
chase.  The  sibyl  went  away  and  burned  three  more., 
Returning  with  three,  she  asked  as  much  for  them 


Beethoven  in  the  Back  Yard  51 

as  for  the  nine.  At  last  the  king’s  curiosity  was 
excited,  and  he  bought  the  remaining  three.  And 
well  that  he  did!  They  contained  the  destinies  of 
the  Roman  Empire. 

Without  a  single  touch  of  myth,  but  with  the  very 
soul  of  reality,  the  destinies  of  humanity  are  revealed 
in  words  as  simple  as  they  are  sublime,  as  heartening 
as  they  are  unexplorable,  as  modern  as  they  are  more 
than  sixty  generations  old.  They  were  spoken  to 
Thomas,  a  severely  practical  man — a  man  prone  to 
linger  overmuch  in  the  back  yard  of  being.  “Jesus 
saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the 
life :  no  one  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me.” 
Thomas  did  not  readily  understand;  but  after  the 
Light  of  the  World  had  gone  through  the  apostle’s 
endungeoned  parts,  the  Sun,  to  recall  Bacon’s  figure, 
was  just  as  pure  as  before,  while  Thomas  was  in¬ 
finitely  cleaner.  At  least  one  thinks  so,  when,  eight 
days  later,  the  man  of  doubt  had  his  gaze  lifted  from 
the  muck  and  mire  and  accepted,  whole-heartedly, 
the  Lordship  of  that  eternity-tuned  Beethoven,  Who 
was  dead  and  is  alive  forevermore. 


Ill 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd! 

WELL,  what  did  you  see  this  morning ?” 

The  question  was  asked  by  the  wife  of  the 
Morning  Tourist. 

“Ask  me  something  easy,”  he  answered.  “I 
have  seen  so  much  that  my  mind  is  all  in  a  har¬ 
monious  whirl.” 

And  yet  the  Tourist  was  limited  in  more  ways 
than  one.  He  was  limited  for  time,  a  most  impor¬ 
tant  element  in  all  true  sight-seeing.  He  was  lim¬ 
ited,  also,  in  respect  to  territory.  For  it  was  only 
a  nook  in  the  blooming,  melodious  out-of-doors  that 
he  had  been  able  to  visit.  Most  of  all,  as  the  sequel 
proves,  he  was  limited  in  the  matter  of  eyes.  If  he 
had  owned  a  thousand  eyes  instead  of  two,  he  knows 
that  something  would  have  managed  to  escape 
them.  So,  fully  recognizing  the  handicaps  he  suf¬ 
fered,  here  is  an  attempt  to  set  down  a  few  of  the 
Morning  Tourist’s  observations. 

i 

The  first  item  has  to  do  with  what  the  wise  ones 

call  the  inorganic.  Whether  they  understand  all 

52 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  53 

that  might  be  said  about  this  mysterious  realm,  I 
shall  not  tarry  to  debate.  It  was  the  belief  of  Plato 
that  poets  utter  great  and  mysterious  things  which 
they  themselves  do  not  understand;  it  may  be  even 
so  of  the  savants  and  the  inorganic.  But,  like  the 
poor,  the  inorganic  is  ever  with  us.  And  with  us 
in  surpassing  wonder,  too.  For  is  it  not  a  miracle 
too  great  to  be  told  to  watch  this  world  of  soil  and 
roots  change  before  our  very  eyes?  Snow  covered 
the  ground  a  few  weeks  ago ;  the  earth  was  stiff  with 
ribs  of  ice;  the  razor-like  winds  shaved  one’s  face 
with  keen  edges.  Yet  behold!  The  only  snow  visi¬ 
ble  anywhere  today  is  in  the  white  blossoms  waving 
in  the  domes  of  swaying,  wind-rocked  trees;  there 
is  not  a  sign  of  frozen  stuff  in  the  ground,  this  busy 
merchantman  having  bartered  away  his  icy  wares 
for  tender  grasses  and  flowering  shrubs ;  the  wind  no 
longer  smites — it  is  soft,  wooing,  and  priestly,  bear¬ 
ing  a  million  seeds  upon  its  invisible  wings  to 
nuptial  bowers  hidden  away  in  every  part  of  the 
wedded  and  wedding  Springtime. 

Do  I  believe  in  miracles?  With  all  my  heart! 
As  long  as  snowbanks  are  lifted  into  bowers  of 
green;  as  long  as  icicles  are  changed  into  fragrant 
twigs ;  as  long  as  the  wild  tunes  of  March  melt  into 
the  building  songs  of  May,  I  shall  remain  an  incur¬ 
able  believer  in  miracles.  I  refuse  to  be  mentally 
and  spiritually  brow-beaten  by  polysyllabic  terminol- 


54  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

ogy  about  inviolable  laws  and  cosmic  forces.  While 
some  people  use  the  big  words  only,  I  am  highly 
resolved  to  enjoy  the  Big  Fact  also! 

Still  keeping  close  to  the  inorganic,  here  is  a  sight 
worth  inscribing  upon  the  tablets  of  memory.  Let 
me  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  something  familiar 
in  our  human  world.  Some  friends  came  in  to  see 
the  new  baby — not  mine,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  but 
somebody’s  dimpled,  wonderful  baby !  But  the  little 
creature  was  asleep.  Having  slept  long  enough,  it 
was  high  time  the  darling  was  now  wide  awake  and 
engaged  in  the  enchanting  business  of  cooing — busi¬ 
ness,  by  the  way,  no  honest  bachelor  can  understand 
except  through  an  interpreter.  Still  the  baby  slept 
on.  Then  did  I  see  the  Mother  bend  over  that  cradle 
and  gently  call  her  child  back  from  the  Sleeplands 
of  Babyhood  into  our  noises.  Likewise,  have  I  not 
seen  Mother  Nature  brooding  above  her  ten  thousand 
cradles?  Putting  on  her  robes  of  mothering  glory, 
she  goes  mysteriously  forth  and  says  :  “Get  up,  Dan¬ 
delion  !  Rouse  yourself,  Tulip !  Come  out  and  greet 
the  sun,  Heliotrope!  Wake  up,  Hyacinth,  and 
sprinkle  the  air  with  your  fragrance !”  And  do  not 
all  the  floral  children  know  their  Mother’s  voice? 
Yes;  down  to  the  last  syllable  and  tone.  A  still 
better  answer  is  in  the  whole  wide-verdured  world 
named  gardens,  fields,  valleys,  and  mountains.  For 
in  Maytime  the  earth  is  one  vast,  many-colored  vase 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  55 

wafting  its  blended  odors  up  to  the  Throne  of 
God. 

Yet  I  dare  not  pass  from  the  inorganic  without 
asking  a  question  which  fairly  haunts  me  every 
springtime.  It  is  this :  Where  does  the  tulip  begin  to 
get  its  red  or  white  or  yellow  ?  Is  the  color  concealed 
in  the  soil,  the  root,  the  stamen,  the  pistil,  or  where  ? 
And  when  does  the  color  begin  to  steal  into  the  rose, 
the  violet,  or  the  orchid?  I  asked  a  gardener  this 
question  as  he  spaded  up  the  soil  about  the  roots  of 
the  rose-bushes.  Truly,  the  look  upon  his  face  was  a 
study  in  human  botany!  But  never  mind!  I  am 
slyly  resolved  on  putting  the  same  question — at  the 
psychological  moment,  of  course! — to  my  botanical 
friend,  justly  renowned  for  his  knowledge  of  the 
plant  world.  Only,  I  am  going  to  couple  with  my 
question  concerning  the  birth  of  color  in  flowers,  a 
second  one  which  troubles  me  not  a  little.  It  runs 
somewhat  as  follows:  At  what  point  does  the  fra¬ 
grance  get  spilled  into  the  jar  of  a  hyacinth?  There 
is,  no  doubt,  a  scientific  answer  to  these  questions ; 
but  even  after  they  have  been  answered  in  the  latest 
word  of  botanical  technique,  I  somehow  feel  that  I 
shall  go  right  on  from  Spring  to  Spring,  asking  my 
foolish  questions  concerning  the  origin  of  color  and 
fragrance  in  flowers.  For,  as  someone  has  said,  it  is 
exactly  where  biology  leaves  off  that  all  religion 
begins.  Yet  why  not  have  all — botany,  biology,  and 


56  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

religion?  That  is  the  question  the  Morning  Tourist 
was  asked  by  the  blossoming  inorganic  world. 

But  if  so  many  awe-provoking  sights  are  visible 
in  the  inorganic,  what  is  one  going  to  do  when  he 
invades  the  organic  realms?  Intellectually  stam¬ 
peded  and  emotionally  overwhelmed,  certainly,  if  he 
does  not  watch  his  step!  If  roots  and  petals  are 
baffling,  are  not  wings  and  warblings  gloriously 
bewildering?  If  colors  on  trees  and  bushes  are 
exquisite,  colors  on  wings — singing  flowers  in  feath¬ 
ers,  floating  through  the  air  and  winging  from  tree 
to  tree — are  lovelier  by  far  than  the  most  fragrant- 
sounding  words  can  picture  them.  For,  while  fields 
and  gardens  are  unfolding  their  panoramas  of  color, 
have  not  birds  also  been  dipped  in  glowing  vats  of 
beauty  and  marked  with  every  imaginable  tint  and 
tone  ?  In  a  single  tree  I  have  seen  a  goldfinch  and  a 
bluebird  holding  forth  at  the  same  time.  It  was  a 
momentary  study  in  unconscious  beauty;  for  no 
man  or  woman  could  possibly  have  flaunted  so  much 
finery  on  Fifth  Avenue  without  the  happy,  accusing 
consciousness  that  everybody  in  the  universe  was 
looking  straight  at  them!  Yet  was  not  that  a  holy 
trinity  of  color  that  I  saw?  The  green  of  the  tree, 
the  blue  of  the  bluebird,  and  the  gold  of  the  gold¬ 
finch  ! 

One  of  the  most  royally  marked  creatures  that 
travel  on  wings  is  the  flicker.  He  is  drawing  worms 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  57 

out  of  the  earth  by  the  yard,  some  distance  away,  as 
I  sit  here  writing.  His  large  body  only  helps  to 
display  his  rich  colorings.  Still,  neither  that  flaming 
red  spot  above  the  head,  nor  that  black  scarf  across 
the  breast,  nor  that  whiff  of  white  on  the  tail,  nor 
the  shining,  russet-colored  suit  worn  by  the  large 
body — these  do  not  disclose  the  unforgettable  beauty 
of  the  flicker.  It  is  when  he  springs  from  the  ground 
and  unfolds  his  ample  wings  in  rhythmic  motion, 
that  his  unrivaled  beauty  breaks  upon  the  eye.  His 
underwings  are  of  gleaming  gold,  and  the  gold  is 
visible  only  in  flight.'  Often,  as  I  have  watched  him 
careering  through  the  air  and  revealing  his  golden 
parts,  I  have  two  monotonously  familiar  thoughts. 
Foremost,  that  he  deserves  a  more  euphonious  name; 
some  mortal  has  inflicted  a  verbal  wound  upon  this 
glorious  bird  by  naming  him  the  flicker.  Why  not 
call  him  a  licker  or  a  kicker,  a  whacker  or  a  cracker, 
and  be  done  with  it !  A  rose  may  smell  as  sweet  by 
another  name ;  nevertheless,  I  would  not  take  advan¬ 
tage  of  the  rose’s  unprotesting,  innocent  sweetness 
by  fastening  a  harsh,  unmelodious  name  upon  it. 
Why,  if  the  flicker  were  dependent  upon  its  name  as 
a  guarantee  of  its  position  in  the  scale  of  creation, 
it  would  most  assuredly  flicker  out!  The  other 
thought  this  golden-underwinged  bird  flashes  into  me 
is  this:  How  like  a  human  he  is  at  his  best!  As 
the  bird  discloses  his  gold  only  in  flight,  so  man  dis- 


58  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

closes  his  true  qualities  as  he  makes  for  the  Infinite. 
Knee-deep  in  its  muck  and  mire,  human  nature  has 
no  beauty  that  either  God  or  man  should  desire  it; 
but  when  human  nature,  with  unfolded  wings  of 
aspiration  and  endeavor,  makes  for  the  highlands  of 
destiny,  it  flashes  forth  from  its  hidden  depths  splen¬ 
dors  of  divinity  and  arguments  of  immortal  worth. 

Yet  more  than  rainbowed  colors  make  overtures 
from  sod  and  wings.  There  is  correspondence  of 
the  most  irresistible  and  intelligent  kind.  I  had  to 
take  off  my  hat  one  Sunday  morning  to  Valiant 
Mr.  Woodpecker.  I  was  out  in  the  open  getting 
tuned  up  for  my  sermon  in  Central  Church,  but  lo ! 
this  gentleman  in  feathers  was  already  in  tune  and 
preaching  furiously  from  his  tree  pulpit.  There  he 
was,  walking  up  and  down,  over  and  around  the  body 
of  the  tree.  I  soon  found  that  the  tree  served  him 
for  his  breakfast  table,  and  he  was  swallowing  in¬ 
sects  as  gormandizingly  as  John  Barleycorn  swallows 
“hooch.”  Ever  and  anon  he  paused  at  his  feast  and 
sang;  as  he  sang,  he  listened;  and  while  he  listened, 
he  got  his  answer.  For,  a  considerable  distance  away, 
Mrs.  Woodpecker  was  also  serving  herself  at  an 
oak-tree  cafeteria.  Each  time  my  nearby  friend  sent 
his  vocal  wireless,  she  answered  promptly  in  the  clear, 
spontaneous  woodpecker  code.  Did  they  under¬ 
stand?  Now,  don’t  be  foolish,  friend!  The  consti¬ 
tution  of  the  universe  would  violate  itself  if  it  failed 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  59 

to  keep  faith  with  a  pair  of  woodpeckers  on  a  May 
morning. 

So,  there  is  hope  for  you,  provided  you  do  not 
insist  on  being  the  living  prototype  of  the  gentleman 
whose  brief  but  significant  biography  was  written 
millenniums  ago:  “The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart, 
There  is  no  God.”  And  does  not  the  fool  always 
go  wrong,  first,  in  his  heart?  Becoming  a  moral 
cripple,  he  begins  to  pull  down  the  blinds  in  the 
house  of  life.  Then,  in  that  morally  smothering, 
spiritually  vermin-infested  atmosphere  he  exists 
rather  than  lives.  And  therein,  with  no  window 
open  toward  the  Infinite,  he  inwardly  rots.  The 
foul  contagion  of  his  foolishness,  creeping  from  his 
heart  to  his  head,  produces  gradual  death.  At  last 
he  blatantly  screams  that  there  is  no  God.  In  a 
living  universe  he  alone  seems  to  have  been  neglected 
by  the  undertaker,  being  thoroughly  dead,  but  un¬ 
buried.  And  the  combined  paradox,  satire,  sarcasm, 
irony,  and  idiocy  of  it  all  is :  If  a  man  says,  There 
is  no  gravitation,  we  reply,  Shut  up,  you  fool,  or 
you’ll  get  yourself  shut  up  in  an  asylum  for  the 
insane !  But  let  some  materialist  or  atheist  proclaim 
from  the  cellars  of  life,  There  is  no  God,  and  there 
are  many  good-natured,  easy-going,  foolish  folk  who 
say,  He  is  a  smart  man;  he  says  there  is  no  God; 
therefore,  God  is  not! 

As  for  myself,  I  prefer  to  accept  the  conclusions 


60  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

of  Mr.  Woodpecker  and  his  faith-keeping  mate. 
Without  being  able  to  read  Tyndall  on  the  science 
of  sound,  they  instinctively  assume  that  sound  was 
made  to  answer  sound.  Thus,  in  our  human  world, 
wise  men  assume  God;  they  act  as  if  He  were;  they 
invariably  find  that  He  is.  But  fools  never  do.  In¬ 
tellectual  smartness  is  too  clumsy  to  survive  in  a 
universe  which,  as  Job  suggests,  hangs  on  nothing. 
Just  outside  my  study  window  I  sometimes  see  a 
big,  prosperous-looking  spider  hanging  on  nothing 
also — nothing  save  a  thin,  filmy  stuff  without  which 
modern  astronomy  would  be  seriously  handicapped  in 
its  study  of  the  interstellar  worlds.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem,  does  not  the  fool  become  a  wise  man 
when  he  learns  that  the  soul,  as  well  as  the  universe, 
ultimately  hangs  upon  the  mighty  but  invisible 
threads  of  faith,  hope,  and  love?  “The  path  of 
science  and  letters  is  not  the  way  into  nature,”  says 
the  seer.  “The  idiot,  the  Indian,  the  child,  and  the 
unschooled  farmer’s  boy  stand  nearer  to  the  light 
by  which  nature  is  to  be  read,  than  the  dissection  of 
the  antiquary.”  Consequently,  when  I  go  out  in 
the  splendor  of  the  dawn,  I  invariably  leave  my 
electric  flashlamp  at  home.  Then  it  is  easier,  some¬ 
how,  to  find  God,  the  True  Master  of  the  Inn,  Who 
takes  “a  man  who  doesn’t  want  to  live  and  makes 
him  fall  in  love  with  life.” 


Morning  Tourist ,  Ltd!  6l 


ii 

The  Morning  Tourist,  limited  as  he  was,  could  not 
confine  himself  to  nature  only,  however  interesting 
and  appealing.  There  were  examples  of  human 
nature  abroad  clamorously  refusing  to  be  ignored. 
As  our  own  is  the  age  in  which  the  factor  of  human 
life  upon  the  earth  is  much  in  evidence,  it  is  perhaps 
appropriate  to  consider  this  phase  now. 

But  not  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  specialist !  That 
smacks  too  much  of  the  authoritative — and  the 
Morning  Tourist  is  not  an  authority.  Long  ago  the 
biologist,  the  sociologist,  and  the  psychologist  in  him 
were  summarily  killed  by  the  humanitarian  and  the 
latitudinarian,  aided  and  abetted  by  the  vegetarian. 
It  was  all  caused  by  the  aforesaid  conspirators  rising 
up  to  destroy  the  joy  and  fun  of  the  human  in  him. 
Little  by  little  they  were  getting  the  better  of  the 
fight ;  but  one  day  an  unexpected  ally  suddenly  leaped 
up  out  of  his  subconscious  pool  and  smote  those  ugly 
enemies  hip  and  thigh — if  not  with  the  jawbone  of 
an  ass,  then  probably  with  an  infinitesimal  but  highly 
effective  sword  wrought  from  the  by-products  of  a 
gram  of  radium!  Ever  since,  those  conspirators 
have  been  serenely  quiescent,  if  not  entirely  null  and 
void.  If  they  are  still  in  existence,  they  have  cer¬ 
tainly  changed  their  forms,  obeying  the  natural 
behest  of  things  that  change  but  never  die. 


6 2  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Moreover,  it  may  be  that  he  has  been  encouraged 
in  this  matter  by  some  words  of  Richard  Grant 
White.  “Newton  saw  no  better,”  avers  the  Shake¬ 
spearean  scholar,  “rejoiced  no  more  in  the  beauty  of 
color,  than  other  people  because  he  analyzed  the  sun¬ 
beam.”  Add  to  these  words  that  saying  of  O.  Henry 
about  prosperity,  and  you,  too,  gentle  reader,  will 
be  disposed  to  seriously  weigh  my  altered  viewpoint : 
“When  a  man’s  income  becomes  so  large  that  the 
butcher  actually  sends  him  the  kind  of  steak  he 
orders,  he  begins  to  think  about  his  soul’s  salvation.” 
Now,  if  two  such  diversified  minds  as  Doctor  White 
and  O.  Henry,  functioning  in  such  widely  differing 
realms  as  spectroscopy  and  beefsteak,  arrive  at  prac¬ 
tically  the  same  conclusion  as  my  own,  do  you  won¬ 
der  that  I  am  inclined  to  be  a  bit  puffed  up,  even 
vainglorious,  because  I  have  foresworn  the  devious 
ways  of  the  specialist  and  adhere  strictly  to  the  paths 
of  the  untutored  human  ? 

At  any  rate,  I  hasten  to  exhibit  a  few  of  my 
human  specimens,  assembled  from  my  out-of-doors 
laboratory.  I  had  almost  said  library,  remembering 
that  old  but  ever  new  story  of  Wordsworth  and  his 
morning  caller.  “Is  Mr.  Wordsworth  in  his 
library?”  asked  the  visitor.  Pointing  to  the  hills  of 
Rydal  Mount,  over  which  the  poet  was  walking,  the 
servant  said :  “Mr.  Wordsworth’s  library  is  all  out- 
of-doors.”  As  the  Morning  Tourist  can  scarcely 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  63 

lay  claim  to  either  laboratory  or  library,  suppose  we 
agree  on  naming  his  quiet  nook  just  a  Lovable  Loaf¬ 
ing  Land. 

I  venture  to  name  my  first  exhibit  specimen  A. 
He  is  a  boy  on  the  verge  of  fifteen.  In  one  hand  he 
carries  a  fishing-pole;  in  the  other  a  can  containing 
worms.  Assuming  myself  to  be  a  member  of  what 
the  mystic  called  the  Lord’s  Happy  Boys,  I  forthwith 
undertook  to  be  facetious.  “Well,  boy,”  quoth  I, 
“the  fish  are  already  so  frightened  by  your  coming 
that  they  have  sought  refuge  on  land.”  “You  don’t 
say!”  snarled  back  this  digger  of  slimy  worms. 
“Gee!  That’s  fine!  The  land  is  always  a  good 
place  to  catch  suckers!” 

From  the  emphasis  he  threw  into  that  last  word, 
I  divined  that  he  meant  me.  So  we  parted  at  once, 
worsted  as  I  unquestionably  was  in  the  verbal  skir¬ 
mish.  Later  on,  however,  I  encountered  him  again. 
Now  he  was  standing  by  the  side  of  the  lagoon,  bare¬ 
footed,  his  pants  rolled  up  above  his  knees,  and  in 
the  act  of  wading  out  into  the  cold  water.  “Don’t 
do  that,  boy!  Please  don’t!”  I  shouted.  “You  will 
be  dead  of  pneumonia  within  two  weeks.” 

This  time  I  won.  For  the  boy,  discreetly  recon¬ 
sidering  his  venture,  withdrew  from  the  water’s 
edge.  And  yet  my  victory  was  short-lived.  A  voice 
out  of  the  Land  of  Nowhere — much  sharper  and 


64  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

more  accusing  than  the  lad’s  sharp  thrust  about 
suckers  on  land — asked : 

“ Why  did  you  yourself  strip  stark  naked  and  go 
swimming  in  the  Big  Sandy  River  in  the  month  of 
February ?” 

I  did  not  answer.  The  question  was  most  embar¬ 
rassing.  The  boy’s  obedience  to  my  earnest  plea 
was  in  itself  somewhat  accusing.  Like  the  man  in 
the  Master’s  parable  of  the  wedding  feast,  I,  too, 
was  speechless. 

Very  different  is  my  second  specimen.  He  is  a 
thoroughgoing  man,  successful  to  the  ends  of  his 
finger-tips.  We  often  meet  in  our  morning  strolls 
and  talk  things  over.  “I  should  rate  you  a  very 
happy  man,  Mr.  Ferguson,”  said  I,  in  the  course  of  a 
discussion  hinging  upon  the  subject  of  success. 
“You  came  to  this  city  from  the  country  a  poor  boy. 
By  dint  of  hard  work  and  ability,  you  now  stand  in 
the  forefront  of  your  line  of  business.  It  must  be 
very  satisfying  to  have  succeeded  as  you  have.” 

Not  in  the  least  given  to  excitement  or  unmeas¬ 
ured  words,  he  replied :  “It  depends  altogether  on 
what  you  mean  by  success.  That  is  an  elastic  term, 
which  contracts  as  well  as  stretches.  True,  I  have 
played  the  game.  It  was  furious,  and  not  entirely 
devoid  of  fun,  I  confess.  But  now  that  I  have  more 
leisure,  I  think  less  of  the  fun  and  more  of  the 
fruit.” 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  65 

There  was  an  undercurrent  of  deep  meaning  flow¬ 
ing  through  his  quiet  speech.  Just  then  a  brown 
thrush — much  to  my  surprise — flew  threateningly 
down  and  drove  away  a  robin,  which  was  dining  at 
the  Early  Worm  Restaurant.  The  worm  was  doubt¬ 
less  a  necessity  for  the  music-making  of  the  thrush. 
Yet  there  was  something  so  impolite  and  ill-mannered 
in  the  way  the  thrush  helped  himself  to  the  meal  of 
his  winged  brother,  that  Ferguson’s  eye  did  not  miss 
its  suggestiveness. 

“Yes,”  he  continued,  “there  is  a  certain  satisfac¬ 
tion  in  what  we  men  call  success.  To  come  into  a 
town  like  this,  ignorant,  poor,  unknown,  and  by 
pluck  to  wrest  a  living  and  then  a  fortune  from  the 
arena  of  things — that  requires  industry,  courage, 
and  manhood.  But  there  comes  a  time,  as  modern 
industry  is  organized,  when  rolling  up  a  fortune  is 
somewhat  after  the  method  practiced  by  that  thrush 
on  the  robin.  The  robin  found  his  worm,  pulled 
him  out  of  the  soil,  was  in  the  act  of  enjoying  him, 
when  that  bandit  thrush  appeared,  helped  himself  to 
another’s  earnings,  and  flew  away.  Naturally,  the 
robin,  if  he  could  reason,  would  ask  the  why  and 
wherefore  of  such  a  system.” 

Meantime,  I  was  wondering  what  the  worm  might 
have  to  say! 

“Now  what  I  am  driving  at,”  he  continued,  “is 
this :  Industry  is  a  cooperative  affair.  We  are  learn- 


66  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

ing  that  society  is  dependent  on  all  its  parts,  not  just 
a  few;  that  heads,  hearts,  and  hands  are  not  neces¬ 
sarily  exclusive,  but  economically  and  humanly 
inclusive.  The  same  is  true  of  nations.  The  evolu¬ 
tion  of  society  makes  it  utterly  impossible  for  modern 
nations  to  get  along  without  each  other;  therefore, 
they  must  get  along  with  each  other,  or  perish 
through  their  selfishly  competitive  and  destructive 
antagonisms.” 

Pretty  tall  talk  that !  And  all  from  a  self-educated 
man,  successful  to  the  core  of  him,  but  not  altogether 
pleased  with  his  success. 

“You’re  a  preacher,”  he  went  on.  “Would  to 
God  that  I  myself  were  an  ordained  minister  of  the 
Gospel !  Night  and  day,  in  village  and  city,  on  farm 
and  in  factory,  in  school  and  governmental  houses, 
I  would  proclaim  the  way  of  Jesus — not  simply  as 
the  only  way  out  of  our  educational,  industrial,  and 

political  tangles,  but” -  here  he  paused  for  an 

instant,  as  if  weighing  every  word  he  spoke — “but 
the  way  of  Jesus  is  the  only  way  in  to  success  that 
does  not  leave  regretful  memories.” 

What  a  revelation  was  this  man!  Had  I  come 
in  contact  with  a  new  angle  of  the  modem  mind  ?  Is 
there  an  unchurched,  creedless  section  of  our  human¬ 
ity,  prosperous  but  disappointed  with  its  prosperity, 
seriously  aware  that  the  law  of  Christ,  which  is  the 
Spirit  of  Love,  is  not  merely  the  only  way  out  of  our 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  67 

international  desert,  but  the  only  way  in  to  the 
paradise  of  human  satisfaction  and  achievement? 
Anyway,  this  modern  mind  has  compelled  me  to  read, 
with  new  eyes,  some  words  from  a  little  book  which 
I  have  carried  in  my  pocket  for  many  years.  “The 
atmosphere  of  moral  sentiment” — so  the  words  run 
— “is  a  region  of  grandeur  which  reduces  all  ma¬ 
terial  magnificence  to  toys,  yet  opens  to  every  wretch 
that  has  reason  the  doors  of  the  universe.”  And  to 
these  words  of  Emerson  I  cannot  resist  adding  the 
words  of  David  Swing :  “The  human  soul  must  have 
freedom.  By  a  gateway  of  wonder  man  came  upon 
this  earth ;  by  the  same  gateway  he  passes  out.  The 
supernaturalism  in  Jesus  is  the  best  wisdom  of  our 
life  in  this  world  and  in  the  world  to  come.  He  is 
the  place  where  the  earth  blends  with  heaven — the 
line  where  sea  and  sky  meet.  He  is  the  only  miracle 
we  need,  but  our  need  of  Him  is  infinite.” 

There  are  still  other  specimens — so  many,  indeed, 
that  there  is  not  room  to  label  them  all  in  this  imper¬ 
fectly  constructed  verbal  cabinet.  There  is  the  little 
girl  whose  mother  was  feeding  the  blackbirds,  which 
followed  the  peanut-bag  around  with  all  the  cringing 
brazenness  of  professional  beggars.  While  the  lus¬ 
trous  black  tramps  followed  the  bag,  the  child  fol¬ 
lowed  the  birds,  vainly  striving  to  pick  one  up.  Al¬ 
ways  barely  missing  the  elusive  citizens  on  wings,  the 
child  grew  angrier  by  the  minute,  finally  stamping  her 


68  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

foot  with  indignation.  As  the  mother  and  the  maid 
laughed,  I  joined  in.  Yet,  could  one,  in  justice, 
limit  such  childish  outbursts  of  indignation  to  my 
unknown  little  friend?  There  is  too  much  of  this 
in  grown-ups  for  one  to  be  unduly  severe  on  the 
child.  I  have  seen  the  temper  of  politicians,  scien¬ 
tists,  philosophers,  physicians,  preachers,  editors, 
and  millionaires  fired  up  by  kindred  trivialities.  The 
astute  blackbirds  of  desire  failed  to  play  into  their 
hands,  and  mercy!  what  an  explosion !  If  somebody 
had  just  roared  with  laughter  at  the  proper  moment, 
the  peeved  child  of  larger  growth  may  have  been 
shocked  into  a  wholesome  reaction  to  common  sense, 
and  laughed  also.  Is  there  not  entirely  too  much  bad 
temper  in  the  world,  and  among  people,  too,  of  whom 
we  have  the  right  to  require  better  manners?  “Bad 
temper/'  observes  a  thinker,  “is  the  vice  of  the  virtu¬ 
ous.”  Bad  temper  is  not  confined  to  the  virtuous, 
by  any  means;  but  the  virtuous  have  no  right  to 
succumb  to  such  a  vice.  “Anger,”  said  Plutarch, 
“turns  the  mind  out  of  doors,  and  bolts  the  door.” 
There  is,  of  course,  a  righteous  anger — not  mere 
personal  resentment  nor  undisciplined  human  explo¬ 
siveness — that  burns  deep  and  strong.  Its  seat  is  in 
the  bosom  of  God  and  in  the  soul  of  every  genuine 
apostle  of  justice.  Therefore,  in  all  ultimate  think¬ 
ing,  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb  is  to  be  dreaded  more 
than  the  roar  of  the  lion. 


Morning  Tourist,  Ltd!  69 

To  sum  it  all  up  in  a  sentence,  the  Morning  Tour¬ 
ist  saw  just  as  many  editions  of  human  nature  as 
there  were  human  beings.  Each  of  us  brings  his 
own  map  of  the  universe  with  him.  There  is  resem¬ 
blance  everywhere,  but  always  difference,  too.  As 
Carlyle  said,  Newton  and  his  dog  Diamond  looked 
out  upon  a  different  pair  of  universes.  But  it  is  not 
true  of  dogs  and  philosophers  only;  it  is  equally  true 
of  philosophers  and  hod-carriers.  The  whole  seems 
to  have  been  symbolized  by  that  versatile  musician 
in  the  top  of  a  lilac  bush.  My  favorite  soloist  of  the 
trees  is  the  mocking  bird.  A  Caruso  on  wings,  he 
is  so  glad  to  sing  that  he  gives  you,  free  of  charge, 
a  ticket  calling  for  a  front  seat  in  his  embowered 
opera  house.  As  is  well  known,  he  is  a  master  imi¬ 
tator,  singing  the  songs  of  other  birds  as  well  as  his 
own.  I  thought  I  had  never  heard  him  sing  so 
deliriously  and  with  such  versatility.  For  repertoire, 
he  was  a  combined  Mozart,  Wagner,  and  Beethoven 
in  feathers.  He  seemed,  as  he  proceeded  with  his 
many-sided  program,  a  kind  of  feathery  vocal  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  universe;  for  he  displays  marvelous 
variety  in  harmoniously  concentrated  unity. 

So,  is  not  the  world  itself  one  vast  mocking  bird, 
wherein  each  soul  may  hear  its  own  song,  and  as 
much  of  the  music  of  every  other  soul  as  he  is 
capable  of  hearing?  Stars  differ  in  glory,  said  Paul ; 
and  so  do  humans;  they  exhibit  as  many  trillions  of 


70  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

differences  as  there  have  been  human  individuals  in 
the  sweep  of  the  ages.  Yet  the  universe  is  one 
throughout  its  million-toned  variations,  because, 
within  the  dazzling  splendor  of  His  infinite  various¬ 
ness,  God  is  one;  and  the  heart  of  His  oneness  is 
Love. 

But  here  we  are  entering  a  field  which  reminds 
the  Morning  Tourist  that  he  is  limited  indeed!  If 
may  be  well,  therefore,  to  close  with  the  song  of 
“The  Never-Old”  : 

“They  who  can  smile  when  others  hate, 

Nor  bind  the  heart  with  frosts  of  fate. 

Their  feet  will  go  with  laughter  bold 
The  green  roads  of  the  Never-Old. 

They  who  can  let  the  spirit  shine 
And  keep  the  heart  a  lighted  shrine, 

Their  feet  will  glide  with  fire-of-gold 
The  green  roads  of  the  Never-Old. 

They  who  can  put  the  self  aside 
And  in  Love’s  saddle  leap  and  ride. 

Their  eyes  will  see  the  gates  unfold 
The  green  roads  of  the  Never-Old.” 


An  Artist  in  Living 

PERHAPS  you  think  the  phrase  should  read, 
“An  Artist  of  Life.”  That  sounds  excellent;  it 
also  reads  well,  capturing  the  eye.  Moreover,  it 
smacks  of  the  classic;  and  most  of  us  are  partial  to 
classicalism,  even  when  we  have  to  take  a  second 
glance  to  definitely  distinguish  between  Alpha  and 
Omega.  We  are  like  the  erstwhile  laundress  who 
married  a  rich  man.  Both  were  determined,  despite 
the  handicap  of  illiteracy,  to  shine  in  the  realms  of 
culture.  They  bought  cartloads  of  books — classics, 
history,  science,  poetry,  philosophy,  best  sellers,  and 
everything.  One  day  a  guest  was  admiring  a  new 
edition  of  Homer,  with  its  accusing,  uncut  pages. 
Still,  the  hostess,  feeling  that  some  comment  was  im¬ 
perative,  glibly  remarked :  “Bill  and  me  sure  do  love 
this  Homer  guy.  He  pulls  off  more  fights  than  John 
L.  Sullivan  and  Jake  Kilrain  ever  heard  of.” 

An  artist  of  life,  however,  suggests  the  painter 
only,  while  I  have  in  mind  something  altogether 
superior  to  the  artistic  dealer  in  colors.  He  is  a 
greatly  successful  human  being;  he  is  a  radiantly 
white  soul  in  a  dark-skinned  body ;  he  has,  for  more 


72  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

than  a  score  of  years,  tended  the  wash-room  and 
shoe-shining  chair  of  a  large  New  York  store;  he 
is  now  almost  threescore  years  and  ten,  and  “going 
west”  with  good  hope  and  a  morning  face. 

“I  am  not  going  to  make  any  suggestions As  I 
entered,  he  was  talking  to  a  friend,  who  had  been 
asking  him  certain  questions.  “My  employer  has 
always  been  good  to  me,  and  I  can  and  will  trust 
him  now/’ 

On  inquiry,  I  found  that  he  had  just  been  placed 
upon  the  firm’s  pension  list.  “How  long  have  you 
been  here,  Uncle?”  I  asked. 

“Twenty-three  years,  sir.  If  I  do  say  it  myself, 
I’m  a  little  bit  proud  this  morning.  They  have  j  ust 
told  me  that  I  have  the  best  record  of  anybody  in  the 
establishment,  white  or  black.  I  tell  you” — he  re¬ 
peated  it  almost  tearfully — “I’m  awfully  proud  of 
myself.” 

After  telling  me  where  he  attended  church  and  the 
name  of  his  pastor,  he  went  on :  “You  know  I  don’t 
have  to  be  here  today.  My  pension  began  last  week, 
and  the  rules  do  not  require  me  to  come  down  now 
at  all.  But  I’m  just  coming  down  for  a  few  days 
anyway — doing  a  few  extra  things  that  need  to  be 
done.” 

But  there  were  no  italics  in  the  tones  of  his  voice. 
It  was  all  said  in  simplicity,  piquancy,  beauty. 


An  Artist  in  Living 


73 


i 

Certain  things  stand  out  in  the  old  man’s  character. 
I  think  they  are  of  quite  permanent  worth.  They 
write  him  down  in  the  catalogue  of  distinguished 
souls.  They  place  him,  it  seems  to  me,  high  up  in 
the  class  of  artists  in  living. 

The  first  thing  is  his  fine  sense  of  appreciation. 
Asked  if  he  had  any  demands  to  make  of  the  busi¬ 
ness  which  he  had  faithfully  helped,  and  which  had 
helped  him  as  well,  he  was  perfectly  content  to  leave 
the  matter  in  the  hands  of  his  employer.  “Cer¬ 
tainly,”  the  cynic  may  rejoin.  “Why  not  ?  Does  not 
the  old  negro  know  that  he  will  get  a  better  deal 
thereby?”  An  unintended  tribute  to  the  employer, 
yet  the  remark  is  thoroughly  unjust  to  the  colored 
man.  While  it  is  not  wise  to  “bank”  absolutely 
upon  human  nature,  I  am  sure  that  the  old  shine- 
man’s  decision  represents  a  habit  of  mind,  an 
attitude  toward  life,  the  invaluable  temperament  of 
appreciation. 

Are  not  half  the  uglinesses  of  life  born  out  of 
the  womb  of  ingratitude,  out  of  our  obstinate  blind¬ 
ness  to  the  beauty  and  goodness  calling  upon  us  day 
after  day  ?  How  else,  for  example,  are  we  to  account 
for  our  stinginess  toward  Nature?  Generation  after 
generation  the  old  Mother  stands  with  outstretched 
hands  patiently  begging  her  children — for  what? 


74  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Just  a  few  pennies  from  our  toy  banks  of  apprecia¬ 
tion,  that  she  may  give  us  undreamed  wealth  in 
return.  “Nature  is  the  only  book,”  said  Goethe, 
“that  has  a  great  lesson  on  every  page.”  And  is  it 
not  because  both  Goethe  and  Wordsworth  saw  and 
read  Nature’s  great  lessons,  that  we  hold  them  for¬ 
ever  in  our  hearts?  As  for  the  latter,  he  suggests 
reality — Wordsworth’s  chief  contribution  to  the 
world,  as  indeed  high-toned  reality  is  any  soul’s 
supreme  offering  to  God  and  men.  Stripping  away 
the  veneer  and  frescoes  with  which  artificial  rime- 
sters  had  overlaid  the  poetry  of  the  time,  Words¬ 
worth  said :  “Come,  now.  Be  genuine.  Look  into 
Nature’s  soul  and  she  will  smite  you  through  with 
strokes  of  her  own  majesty  and  loveliness.”  And 
it  was  so.  A  new  school  of  singers,  quite  able 
to  forsake  the  dusty  nests  of  custom  and  fly  abroad 
in  the  pure,  bracing  skies  of  truth,  came  to  birth. 

Appreciation  is  therefore  the  foundation  of  the 
artist  in  living.  He  is  no  longer  deceived  by  the 
camouflage  that  mars  certain  huge  ships  of  culture 
sailing  artificial  seas.  Admitting  the  greatness  of 
art,  he  knows  that  all  true  art  is  fathered  by  life 
and  mothered  by  character.  False  teachers  say  that 
I  must  first  go  to  the  library  to  discover  greatness. 
But  William  Shakespeare  and  Oliver  Cromwell, 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  Robert  E.  Lee  were  great 
long  before  their  names  were  caught  within  the  four 


An  Artist  in  Living  75 

walls  of  any  library.  They  say  that  I  must  first  go 
to  the  art  gallery  to  discern  beauty.  Where  do  stars 
and  daisies  and  children’s  faces  come  in?  They 
say  that  I  must  first  go  to  the  orchestra  to  hear 
music?  What  did  God  make  larks  and  nightingales 
for?  They  say  that  I  must  first  go  to  the  forum 
to  learn  wisdom.  A  fine  proposition  truly;  it  looks 
well  in  text-books  on  rhetoric :  but  it  assumes  that 
God  is  dumb  and  that  I  am  deaf.  Nay;  all  of  these 
are  second,  because  life — the  warm,  budding,  bloom¬ 
ing  breath  of  life — is  first,  even  as  God  is  first  and 
the  universe  second. 

Moreover,  the  arts  owe  their  being  to  the  simple 
and  glorious  truth  that  they  embody  some  phase  of 
life.  Both  arts  and  institutions  keep  the  even  tenor 
of  their  way  only  by  keeping  up  with  life;  other¬ 
wise,  they  become  mere  shells  cast  upon  the  shores 
of  oblivion,  while  the  sea  of  life  flows  calmly  on 
through  the  channels  of  infinity.  Only  life  counts; 
existence  is  of  little  worth,  or  at  least  far  down  in 
the  scale  of  being,  as  the  worm  lazily  proves.  Stu¬ 
dents  know  how  reading  of  greatness  may  degenerate 
into  self-indulgent  pastime;  but  an  honest  endeavor 
to  be  great — great  in  simplicity,  great  in  helpfulness, 
great  in  lovingkindness,  great  in  truthfulness,  great 
in  trustfulness,  great  in  mental  hospitality,  great  in 
humility — this  is  indeed  that  industrious  idealism 
which  brings  from  the  mines  of  the  Infinite  the  dia- 


76  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

monds  of  character,  the  glowing  rewards  of  high 
and  faithful  living.  Such  endeavor  may  be  likened 
unto  the  grease  plate  attached  to  the  wonderful 
machines  at  the  Kimberley  diamond  mines.  All  sorts 
of  things  tumble  over  it — emeralds,  opals,  nails,  solid 
substances;  but  when  a  diamond  strikes  the  grease 
plate  it  sticks.  There  is  a  strange  affinity  between 
the  grease  and  the  diamond.  Similarly,  the  appre¬ 
ciative  nature  picks  up  spiritual  diamonds  at  every 
step  in  life’s  journey.  And  these  jewels  are  always 
gleaming  through  the  dust  of  the  commonplace, 
always  shining  in  the  fields  of  the  extraordinary. 
The  elder  Hallam  says  that  his  son  Arthur  was  espe¬ 
cially  deficient  in  the  power  of  memory.  “But,”  he 
adds,  “he  could  remember  anything,  as  a  friend 
observed  to  the  Editor,  that  was  associated  with  an 
idea.”  Did  not  my  colored  friend,  all  unconsciously 
but  most  impressively,  thrust  one  of  life’s  major 
ideas  fairly  at  me?  Henceforth  I  shall  count  him  a 
benefactor.  I  am  resolved  to  strengthen  my  own 
memory  on  the  side  of  appreciation. 

ii 

There  is  another  truth  shining  through  the  fea¬ 
tures  of  this  lustrous  man.  It  is  the  imprint  of  soul- 
satisfaction  made  by  a  splendid  fidelity.  “If  I  do 
say  it  myself,  I’m  a  little  proud  this  morning.  They 
have  just  told  me  that  I  have  the  best  record  of  any- 


An  Artist  in  Living  77 

body  in  the  house,  white  or  black.”  If  this  be  pride, 
then  it  is  the  pride  Heaven  adores.  For  I  know  not 
what  else  can  yield  one  such  unalloyed  satisfaction 
as  an  honest,  bravely  wrought  record.  It  produces 
a  feeling  in  the  soul  akin  to  the  loveliness  of  the 
sunset’s  afterglow.  It  is  spiritually  diffusive;  it  is 
the  shine  of  character  upon  the  daily  deed;  it  affirms 
the  loyal  devotion  of  precious  hours  to  the  matter 
in  hand;  it  utters  the  soul’s  amen  to  the  joy  and 
necessity  of  work  while  it  is  yet  day.  Therefore, 
the  night  comes  quietly,  luminously  on;  it  is  so  full 
of  stars  that  the  darkness  can  scarcely  find  room 
within  their  mellow  interspaces.  “We  work  till 
the  evening,”  Doctor  George  A.  Gordon  wrote  me 
in  the  most  beautiful  of  letters,  “and  then  for  pay 
we  receive  the  freedom  of  the  universe!” 

Yet  I  am  sure  that  my  colored  friend,  justly  proud 
of  his  record,  is  not  a  disciple  of  those  masters  who 
teach  salvation  by  character  or  by  works.  Indeed,  I 
soon  discovered  the  secret  of  his  loyalty.  Like 
Charles  Kingsley,  he,  too,  has  a  Friend.  That 
Friend  is  the  Saviour;  that  Saviour  deals  with  his 
sin;  consequently,  that  Saviour  makes  his  salvation 
vital,  deep,  personal.  And  is  there  not  unassailable 
ground  for  believing  that  all  the  rich  character  which 
worthily  and  permanently  avails,  in  man’s  long  pH- 
grimage  through  an  infinite  universe,  grows  out  of 
this  always  new,  impregnable  reality? 


78  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

“A  man  called  Dante,  I  have  heard, 

Once  ranged  the  country-side; 

He  knew  to  dawn’s  mysterious  word 
What  drowsy  birds  replied. 

He  knew  the  deep  sea’s  voice,  its  gleams 
And  tremulous  lights  afar. 

When  he  lay  down  at  night,  in  dreams 
He  tramped  from  star  to  star.” 

We  are  all  out  on  a  Dantesque  journey.  Going 
away  to  spend  the  night,  a  handbag  will  do;  but 
going  away  to  spend  Eternity,  we  require  large 
equipment.  Tramping  from  star  to  star  is  not  a 
task  that  can  be  triumphantly  performed  by  a  spirit¬ 
ual  tyro. 

As  this  is  not  just  a  diversion,  a  curious  byplay  in 
intellectual  gymnastics  suggested  by  a  lowly  human 
being  as  human  beings  are  measured  by  the  world’s 
inadequate  yardstick,  I  wish  to  recall  the  words  of  a 
g<reat  scholar  and  a  lofty  soul  upon  this  point. 
Speaking  to  Christian  people  in  Carnegie  Hall, 
Woodrow  Wilson,  then  president  of  Princeton  Uni¬ 
versity,  said :  “I  speak  on  controversial  ground  here, 
but  before  I  got  to  this  platform  I  spoke  a  few 
minutes  with  several  gentlemen  of  those  faiths  which 
teach  salvation  by  character.  I  regard  such  an  enter¬ 
prise  as  one  of  despair.  Just  how  you  feel  about 
your  character  I  do  not  know,  but  I  know  how  I 


An  Artist  in  Living  79 

feel  about  my  own.  I  would  not  care  to  offer  it  as 
a  certificate  of  salvation.” 

Three  things  stand  out  in  this  thinker’s  statement. 
So  long  as  men  teach  salvation  by  character,  denying 
the  altogether  unique  and  saving  act  of  God  on 
Calvary,  the  ground  will  remain  controversial.  There 
can  be  no  salvation  without  character,  that  is  not 
even  debatable;  but  to  make  salvation  by  character 
the  chief  cornerstone  of  a  theology  or  ethic,  mis¬ 
construes  the  facts  behind  the  towering  men  of 
history;  it  ignores  the  profoundest  problems  in  con¬ 
science  and  consciousness ;  it  negatives  the  method  of 
the  Incarnation,  if  not  its  backlying  purpose;  it 
proves,  if  not  a  clear-cut  shallowness,  at  least  a 
lack  of  spiritual  and  mental  inclusiveness  in  the 
make-up  of  those  sincerely  holding  it.  To  gayly  as¬ 
sert,  as  so-called  liberals  do,  that  the  New  Testament 
conception  of  salvation  is  wooden  and  mechanical, 
and  forsooth  needs  to  be  corrected  by  the  modern 
man’s  unfolding  religious  consciousness — well,  it  is 
gay  assertiveness,  anyway.  To  be  told  that  Paul,  for 
example,  was  hopelessly  entangled  by  temporary 
thought-forms  that  have  been  forever  superseded,  is 
not  thoroughly  convincing.  And  why?  Because 
such  reasoning,  if  it  be  worthy  of  the  name,  fails  to 
reckon  with  Life — the  Life  so  deep,  so  rich,  so  fiery, 
so  eternal  that  no  verbal  vehicles  could  contain  it. 
As  to  the  phraseology,  what  man  does  not  use  the 


80  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

speech  of  his  time  ?  Were  he  to  fail  in  this,  he  would 
be  of  little  use  to  his  own  or  any  age.  But  the 
verbal  drapery,  the  thought-molds  are  secondary.  It 
is  the  Fact  we  want;  and  the  great  Fact  of  history 
is  “ Jesus  Christ,  and  Him  crucified/’  Throw  away 
the  forms,  if  you  choose,  and  create  better,  if  you 
are  able,  O  liberal  souls;  but  the  Fact  refuses  to  be 
tossed  away;  it  is  as  unworn  as  the  atoms,  as  un¬ 
dimmed  as  the  galaxies,  as  fresh  and  green  as  April 
buds. 

The  second  thing:  Salvation  by  character  is  ulti¬ 
mately  a  hopeless  quest.  “I  regard  such  an  enter¬ 
prise  as  one  of  despair,”  says  Mr.  Wilson.  So  has 
every  greatly  perceptive  and  profoundly  desirous 
soul.  There  is,  unquestionably,  a  type  of  life — 
gracious,  sweet,  amiable,  refined — that  journeys 
along  the  paths  of  being  in  outwardly  excellent  form. 
It  stands  for  good  citizenship;  it  symbolizes  culture; 
it  is  richly  humanitarian  and  winsomely  philan¬ 
thropic.  No  man  can  say  that  it  is  not  good;  nor 
would  any  dare  say  that  it  does  not  make  for  a  better 
world.  What  one  is  compelled  to  say,  however,  in 
canvassing  all  the  facts,  is  this :  The  type,  though 
good,  fails  of  the  best;  and  it  evidently  fails  of  the 
best  because  it  carries  a  closed  mind  to  those  mighty 
spiritual  forces  which  produced  Paul  in  one  age, 
Augustine  in  another,  Luther  in  another,  Wesley  in 
another,  Westcott  in  another,  Fairbairn  in  another, 


An  Artist  in  Living  8l 

and  Denney  in  another  and  later  still.  The  difference 
is  not  one  of  scholarship;  there  have  been  just  as 
able  and  eminent  scholars  in  the  opposing  schools; 
the  difference  is  one  of  distinctly  definite  Christian 
consciousness  as  set  over  against  distinctly  indefinite 
Christian  consciousness.  In  a  word,  it  is  the  kind 
of  life  wanting  in  what  Bagehot  said  Augustine  had 
— “an  experiencing  nature.”  At  any  rate,  it  is  lack¬ 
ing  in  the  power,  perhaps  due  to  the  closing  of  cer¬ 
tain  sides  of  the  nature,  to  experience  in  the  classic 
and  eternal  worths  of  a  full-orbed  and  undiluted 
Christianity. 

The  third  statement  is  also  worthy  of  considera¬ 
tion.  “Just  how  you  feel  about  your  character,  I 
do  not  know ;  but  I  know  how  I  feel  about  my  own. 
I  would  not  care  to  offer  it  as  a  certificate  of  sal¬ 
vation.”  Is  not  this  the  mood  of  every  thoroughly 
rational  life,  face  to  face  with  sin,  death,  and  des¬ 
tiny?  We  know  how  expert  is  the  soul  in  conven¬ 
iently  shutting  its  eyes ;  it  has  rare  facility,  also,  for 
putting  on  false  faces;  and  it  knows  how  to  clothe 
itself  in  Emersonian  transcendentalisms.  But  the 
soul  has  an  inner  ear,  even  when  it  blinds  its  eyes; 
it  can  hear,  when  it  cannot  see,  and  it  knows  the 
crack  of  doom  when  it  sounds;  and  doom  cares  not 
for  spiritual  rhetoric  or  generous  make-believe.  For 
then  Man  cries  unto  God  in  earnest.  Matthew 
Arnold  sings  the  undying  truth : 


82  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

“When  the  soul,  growing  clearer, 

Sees  God  no  nearer ; 

When  the  soul,  mounting  higher, 

To  God  comes  no  nigher; 

But  the  arch-fiend  Pride 
Mounts  at  her  side, 

Foiling  her  high  emprise, 

Sealing  her  eager  eyes, 

And,  when  she  fain  would  soar, 

Makes  idols  to  adore, 

Changing  the  pure  emotion 
Of  her  high  devotion, 

To  a  skin-deep  sense 
Of  her  own  eloquence ; 

Strong  to  deceive,  strong  to  enslave — 

Save,  oh !  save.” 

Very  much  more  Christocentric  is  Browning. 
Speaking  of  his  own  religious  convictions  to  Mrs. 
Orr,  his  biographer,  he  closed  by  reading  to  her  the 
“Epilogue  to  Dramatis  Personnse.”  “It  will  be 
remembered,”  she  goes  on,  “that  the  beautiful  and 
pathetic  second  part  of  the  poem  is  a  cry  of  spiritual 
bereavement,  the  cry  of  those  victims  of  nineteenth 
century  skepticism  for  whom  incarnate  Love  has  dis¬ 
appeared  from  the  universe,  carrying  with  it  the 
belief  in  God.  The  third  part  attests  the  continued 
existence  of  God  in  Christ,  as  mystically  present  to 
the  individual  soul : 

That  one  Face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows, 
Or  decomposes  but  to  recompose, 

Become  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows. 


An  Artist  in  Living  83 

‘That  face/  said  Mr.  Browning  as  he  closed  the 
book,  ‘that  face  is  the  face  of  Christ:  that  is  how 
I  feel  Him/  ” 

It  is  so  of  Paul,  of  Browning,  of  the  humble 
negro.  The  unknown,  as  the  well  known,  has  a 
good  record  because  he  has  a  good  God.  That 
explains  my  obscure  friends  sunset  saintliness.  The 
dew  of  the  morning  and  the  heat  of  the  noontide 
survive  in  the  tranquil  splendor  of  the  evening.  An 
artist  in  living,  and  not  just  an  artist  of  life,  he  jour¬ 
neys  west  with  little  baggage  and  much  integrity. 
There  is  a  thrushlike  note  in  his  voice,  a  note  blown 
from  far-off  heights,  and  it  rings,  as  Swinburne 
might  say,  “like  a  golden  jewel  down  a  golden  stair.” 

hi 

Surely,  not  the  least  important  side  of  the  man  is 
revealed  in  the  fact  that  he  had  come  to  the  store 
that  very  morning.  His  presence  was  not  required, 
having  already  earned  his  vesper  holiday.  “But,” 
he  said,  “I’m  coming  down  for  a  few  days  anyway — 
just  doing  a  few  extra  things  that  need  to  he  done 

Ah !  that  word  “extra”  is  alive  with  great 
thoughts;  it  is  vibrant  with  spiritual  music;  it  sug¬ 
gests  a  quality  of  genius  that  cannot  be  unduly  cele¬ 
brated.  Were  the  world  robbed  of  the  souls  profi¬ 
cient  in  the  fine  art  of  doing  more  than  is  required, 
earth  would  be  as  vacant  as  summer  chairs  on  March 


84  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

verandas  bleakly  waiting  for  June’s  return.  For  the 
extra-doing  life  is  of  paramount  worth.  It  is  the 
index  to  all  the  noble  mothers  who  have  carried  the 
children  of  men  under  their  hearts.  “The  only  bad 
thing  Mother  ever  does  is  to  die,  go  away  and  leave 
you!”  exclaimed  an  understanding  soul.  But  even 
then  we  hear  the  melody  of  their  sacred  feet  falling 
upon  heavenly  floors.  Mothers  give  us  peeps  into 
glory,  as  Henry  Vaughan  suggests,  tuning  our  heart- 
lyres  to  the  victorious  chant: 

“Dear,  beauteous  death!  the  jewel  of  the  just, 
Shining  nowhere  but  in  the  dark ; 

What  mysteries  lie  beyond  thy  dust, 

Could  man  outlook  that  mark !” 

Nor  is  it  otherwise  with  opulent  fatherhood.  Many 
a  man’s  inalienable  soul-possession  is  the  memory  of 
a  father  who  seemed  never  to  weary  of  dispensing 
lovingkindnesses  to  his  unworthy  son.  Now  that 
he  has  disappeared,  gone  in  behind  all  forms  and 
horizons  of  matter,  his  memory  irradiates  the  filial 
heart  with  a  splendor  surpassing  twilight  skies,  after 
the  sun  has  done  its  “dying  so  triumphally.” 

Then,  too,  when  I  think  of  certain  shop-girls, 
wrestling  with  the  unangelic  giant  of  Modern  Com¬ 
merce  for  the  blessing  of  a  livelihood,  I  wonder  if 
there  is  not  herein  abundant  material  for  some  new 
Iliad  of  heroism.  I  think  of  one  who  is  the  sole 
support  of  aged  parents;  of  another,  the  head  of  a 


An  Artist  in  Living  85 

household,  feeding  and  clothing  her  two  orphan 
sisters,  and  struggling  to  keep  them  in  school ;  of  a 
third,  a  woman  of  sixty — her  hair  is  as  white  as 
Easter  lilies  and  her  voice  is  supernally  sweet — who 
made  a  home  for  her  aged  Mother  so  many  years 
that  the  saint  once  said  to  me :  “Well,  it  does  look  as 
if  God  had  forgotten  to  come  and  take  me  Homed’ 
Her  voice  of  ninety  odd  summers  and  winters  had 
a  far-away  sound,  like  the  soft  sigh  of  a  spiritual 
wind  blowing  in  from  Invisible  Seas.  She  was  one 
of  those  rare  souls  of  whom  my  friend  Doctor  Wil¬ 
liam  Francis  Campbell  says :  “The  old-fashioned 
woman  is  the  only  woman  who  never  grows  old- 
fashioned.”  Yet  do  each  and  all  of  these  unsung 
heroines  bear  their  burdens  unmurmuringly.  I  will 
leave  the  sentence  as  it  stands;  yet  I  know  that  it 
does  not  tell  the  whole  truth.  The  fact  is,  these 
characters  are  all  grateful  for  the  privilege  of  serving 
in  Love’s  White  Army  of  the  Unconquered  and 
Unconquerable. 

What  about  our  soldier  boys  as  exemplars  of  this 
royal  law  ?  Have  they  not  spoken  the  extra  word  of 
goodness  and  done  the  extra  deed  of  heroism? 
Focus  your  gaze  on  Flanders  Fields,  Chateau 
Thierry,  and  the  Argonne  Forest.  Those  terrible 
nights  are  sown  so  thick  with  stars  of  gallantry  that 
the  darkness  shines  like  the  day.  Our  newspapers 
were  filled  with  columns  of  names  of  both  officers 


86  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

and  privates  distinguished  ‘‘for  devotion  beyond 
duty.”  It  is  a  thrilling  chapter  in  America's  golden 
book  of  heroism.  We  read  in  terse  official  language 
how  “at  all  times  this  officer  rendered  loyal  and 
intelligent  support  to  the  division  commander  and  in 
battle  demonstrated  high  qualities  of  personal  cour¬ 
age.”  And  another:  “Though  suffering  from  ill¬ 
ness,  he  volunteered  and  performed  valiant  service  as 
a  telephone  operator  under  heavy  shell  fire.”  And 
this:  “Under  fire  from  enemy  artillery,  machine 
guns,  and  snipers,  Private  Hopp  crawled  out  in  the 
open  within  fifty  metres  of  a  hostile  position,  remain¬ 
ing  three  several  hours,  and  returning  with  valuable 
information  concerning  the  enemy’s  movements.” 
Private  Lee  and  Corporal  Caldwell  were  separated 
from  their  company  in  a  smoke  barrage.  Finding 
themselves  face  to  face  with  the  enemy,  Lee  lifted 
his  gun  to  his  shoulder  and  tried  to  fire.  But  the 
gun  was  jammed  and  would  not  shoot.  However, 
Lee’s  brain  was  in  first-class  working  order,  for  he 
held  his  shootless  gun  dead  on  the  Huns,  who  threw 
up  their  hands,  while  Caldwell  rounded  them  up  and 
disarmed  them.  Call  it  a  Yankee  trick  if  you  choose ; 
but  it  helped  to  save  civilization.  Second  Lieut. 
Horace  B.  Scanlon  is  placed  upon  the  valor  roll  for 
“exceptional  gallantry  and  inspiring  example.” 
Organizing  the  most  advanced  units  of  his  company, 
he  shattered  an  enemy  counter-attack  under  heavy 


An  Artist  in  Living  87 

machine  gun  fire.  Mortally  wounded,  he  exhorted 
his  men  in  the  unforgettable  words :  “Go  on  fighting; 
never  mind  what  happens  to  me.”  And  so  it  runs — 
a  gloriously  monotonous  battle  song  of  freedom 
chanted  amid  the  blazing  hells  of  No  Man’s  Land! 

These,  then,  are  the  degrees  we  bestow  upon  the 
artist  in  living :  A  fine  sense  of  appreciation,  a  splen¬ 
did  fidelity,  and  a  genius  for  thinking  and  doing 
“extra”  things.  One  February  morning  I  chanced 
to  witness  their  embodiment  in  a  colored  brother. 
For  me  he  has  abidingly  taken  his  place  in  God’s 
ranks  of  the  unknown  great.  Therefore,  I  offer  no 
apology  for  elaborating  certain  truths  which  his 
resonant  personality  set  afoot  within  the  precincts 
of  my  own  mind.  I  recall  that  Doctor  Carpenter 
once  sent  Sir  Charles  Lyell  a  monograph  on  an 
obscure  specimen  of  natural  history.  Fearing  that 
the  scientist  might  think  he  was  exaggerating  the 
importance  of  the  insignificant,  Carpenter  also  sent 
an  apology  along  with  the  specimen.  Much  to  his 
surprise,  he  received  from  the  geologist  this  reply: 
“Any  single  point  is  really  the  universe.”  If  this 
be  true  of  the  natural,  it  cannot  be  less  true  of  the 
spiritual,  and  especially  the  spiritual  as  focused  in  a 
human  being.  We  may  not  agree  with  Emerson 
“that  everybody  knows  as  much  as  the  savant”;  but 
we  must  agree  with  him  when  he  says :  “The  walls 
of  rude  minds  are  scrawled  all  over  with  facts,  with 


88  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

thoughts.”  And  it  is  our  privilege  to  go  on  to  a 
Greater  than  Lyell  or  Emerson  and  hear  Him  ask 
and  answer  one  of  the  most  amazing  and  sublime 
questions  ever  heard  by  mortal  ears :  “Are  not  two 
sparrows  sold  for  a  penny  ?  and  not  one  of  them  shall 
fall  on  the  ground  without  your  Father :  but  the  very 
hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered.  Fear  not  there¬ 
fore  :  ye  are  of  more  value  than  many  sparrows.” 


V 


Bryanism 

MR.  BRYAN’S  exposition  (?)  of  the  philos¬ 
ophy  of  evolution  is  interesting  from  several 
standpoints.  First  of  all,  it  reveals  the  Commoner’s 
uncommon  genius  for  getting  hold  of  the  fragments 
of  a  proposition  and  trying  to  prove  that  any  one  of 
the  fragments  is  more  important  than  the  whole.  It 
also  illustrates  how  a  greatly  useful  man  may  con¬ 
sistently  and  continuously  exercise  an  essentially  un¬ 
traveled  mind.  Some  people  take  their  bodies  around 
the  world,  carefully  leaving  their  minds  at  home, 
because,  as  one  unsophisticated  globe-trotter  ex¬ 
plained,  “I  didn’t  have  much  mind  to  bother  me  when 
I  started.”  Moreover,  it  discloses  what  an  impor¬ 
tant  factor  temperament  plays  in  the  conclusions 
which  we  form,  whether  religiously,  philosophically, 
economically,  politically,  or  even  scientifically  speak¬ 
ing.  For  not  even  the  mental  discipline  and  rigor 
supplied  by  diligent  training  in  the  study  of  uncol¬ 
ored  facts  can  altogether  ignore  the  individual’s 
temperamental  strain. 

Furthermore,  does  not  Mr.  Bryan’s  crusade  mani¬ 
fest  how  deeply  the  roots  of  medievalism  are  planted 

89 


90  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

in  wide  sections  of  the  so-called  modern  world;  and 
the  kind  of  medievalism,  too,  that  invariably  puts  the 
minor  before  the  major  premise.  Recently  it  was 
my  duty,  in  going  from  one  city  to  another,  to  pass 
through  Zion  City.  As  is  well  known,  the  “boss”  of 
that  rather  curious  community,  Mr.  Voliva,  teaches, 
and  commands  his  teachers  to  teach,  that  the  earth  is 
flat.  Somehow  or  other,  as  I  drove  through  Zion 
City,  my  thoughts  insisted  on  flying  away  to  other 
cities.  For  example,  Lincoln,  Neb.,  Tampa,  Fla., 
and — oh,  well,  so  many  others  that  are  being  cru¬ 
saded  by  a  similar  intellectual  hypothesis  that  I  could 

not  count  them.  Yet  Zion  City,  Voliva,  and - ! 

Well,  at  any  rate,  as  the  psychologists  teach,  the  law 
of  association  is  surprisingly  strong! 

Therefore,  Bryanism  quite  readily  lends  itself  to  a 
definition:  It  is  a  form  of  human  myopia.  I  pro¬ 
pose  to  outline  this  human  nearsightedness  in  its 
religious,  educational,  and  political  aspects.  Such  a 
study  will,  I  believe,  throw  some  light  upon  the  men¬ 
tal  backgrounds,  the  intellectual  roots,  of  many  of 
the  propositions  which  are  being  debated  throughout 
the  country. 


i 

Bryanism  is  nowhere  more  pathetic  and  injurious 
than  in  its  religious  bearing.  Going  forth  in  true 
Don  Quixote  fashion,  it  fanatically  spends  its  energy 


Bryanism  91 

on  windmills  instead  of  deadly  fortresses  crying 
aloud  for  destruction.  For  what  is  the  cardinal  point 
of  the  Christian  religion?  It  is  love,  because  God  is 
love.  “By  this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my 
disciples,”  says  the  Master,  “if  ye  have  love  one  to 
another.”  “If  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,”  says  Paul,  “he  is  none  of  His.”  The  Chris¬ 
tian,  then,  is  a  human  being  dominated  by  the  love  of 
God,  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  Possessing  everything 
else  but  lacking  these,  he  is  not  a  Christian.  He  may 
recite  all  the  creeds ;  give  all  he  has  to  philanthropy ; 
be  an  ardent  patriot,  a  Darwinian  evolutionist  or  a 
Biblical  literalist;  he  may  be  rich  or  poor,  old  or 
young,  learned  or  ignorant,  white,  black,  red,  or  yel¬ 
low.  But  if  he  has  not  love,  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he 
is  none  of  His,  he  is  not  a  Christian. 

Yet  Bryanism,  with  its  myopic  emphases,  excom¬ 
municates  everybody  who  does  not  accept  its  inter¬ 
pretation  of  God,  Man,  the  Bible,  the  Universe.  It 
insists  that  the  method  of  man’s  creation  is  more 
important  than  the  fact  that  man  is  already  created. 
Following  this  tangential  lead,  it  flies  off  on  its  non¬ 
sensical  lark  of  turning  the  Bible  into  a  text-book  on 
physical  science.  But  the  Bible — the  good  and  great 
and  unique  and  unwithering  Bible — rebels.  There  is 
something  almost  motherlike  in  its  tender  plea : 
“O  foolish  man,  do  not  abuse  me.  Do  not  force  me 
to  do  a  work  for  which  God  never  intended  me.  I 


92  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

am  to  the  race  what  a  true  woman  is  to  her  child — a 
wise  and  spiritual  mother.  I  am  the  record  of  good 
and  bad  things  in  human  life.  I  grew  up  out  of  life 
itself.  I  am  as  I  am  because  holy  and  unholy  souls 
are  as  they  are.  My  service  is  infinitely  greater  than 
to  tell  men  how  they  were  made ;  science  can  do  that ; 
but  the  province  of  religion,  of  which  I  am  the 
uniquest  custodian,  is  to  teach  men  why  they  were 
made — to  obey  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever/’ 

Still,  Bryanism  has  no  sense  for  this  august  dis¬ 
crimination.  It  cannot  distinguish  things  that  differ. 
It  glibly  says:  “The  Darwinians  cannot  make  a 
monkey  out  of  me.”  The  obvious  reply  to  which  is : 
The  Darwinians  do  not  have  to  make  a  monkey  out 
of  that  kind  of  thinking :  the  monkey  is  there  already, 
self-made,  and  unblushingly  proud  of  its  monkey- 
ism.  And  this  is  said  with  entire  respect  for  the 
monkey.  This  much-abused  animal  has  a  real  place 
in  creation.  I  believe  this  because  I  believe  that  the 
Bible  and  the  universe  of  life  teach  that  God  is  the 
creator  of  all  things,  sin  alone  being  excepted.  Was 
not  Peter  an  apostle  of  Bryanism — a  victim  of 
human  myopia — when  he  had  his  vision  “of  four- 
footed  beasts  and  creeping  things  of  the  earth  and 
birds  of  the  heaven”?  Commanded  to  kill  and  eat, 
Peter  answered:  “Not  so,  Lord;  for  I  have  never 
eaten  anything  that  is  common  and  unclean.”  It  was 
then  that  Peter  was  given  a  lesson  in  physical,  men- 


Bryanism  93 

tal,  and  spiritual  hygiene  that  men  have  been  Bryan- 
istically  slow  to  learn;  for  we  read:  “And  a  voice 
came  unto  him  again  the  second  time,  What  God 
hath  cleansed,  make  not  thou  unclean.”  Notwith¬ 
standing  the  fact  that  God  has  cleansed  the  heavens 
and  the  earth,  the  vast  human  tragedy  and  blindness 
is  that  we  industriously  make  common  and  unclean 
that  which  has  been  smitten  through  and  through  by 
the  splendor  of  Deity.  No!  I  will  not  have  the 
monkey  slandered.  He  at  least  has  physical  and 
mental  agility,  if  not  spiritual  imagination.  The 
fact  is,  I  find  much  in  common — and  in  a  universe 
going  slowly  on  to  democracy  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
confess  it — with  my  brother  anthropoid,  even  as 
Francis  of  Assisi  acknowledged  a  certain  friendli¬ 
ness  toward  his  little  brother,  the  ass.  The  ape  and 
I  breathe  the  same  air,  drink  the  same  water,  bathe 
in  the  light  of  the  same  sun,  are  impartially  acted 
upon  by  the  same  law  of  gravity.  We  have  certain 
physical  kinships  that  all  the  Bryanism  in  the  universe 
cannot  bawl  down.  The  same  God  made  us  both — 
the  monkey  and  me.  I  think  he  did  a  good  job  on 
the  monkey. 

While  I  do  not  ignore  the  rightful  position  of  the 
monkey  in  the  cosmos,  I  do  not  overlook  the  infinitely 
greater  dignity  of  man  in  the  scale  of  creation,  even 
though  some  men  do  persist  in  thinking  childishly 
of  the  physical  beginnings  of  the  race  to  which  they 


94  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

belong.  The  distinction  of  man  consists  in  the  fact 
that  God  created  him  in  His  image.  As  God  has  no 
physical  image — a  truth  which  large  sections  of 
Bryanism  ignore — this  means,  of  course,  that  man’s 
likeness  to  God  is  in  his  ability  to  think,  will,  and 
feel.  Now,  whether  there  has  been  such  a  thing  as 
mutation  of  species  or  not,  my  big  hairy  brother 
chimpanzee  and  I  are  sustained  in  physical  being  by 
blood  of  the  same  color.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some 
of  his  senses  are  much  keener  than  my  own.  He  can 
climb  better,  see  better,  and  hear  better.  But  where 
the  champanzee  and  I  part  company,  by  the  wisdom 
of  the  same  Creator,  is  in  the  realm  of  mind.  The 
monkey’s  body  is  married  to  little  mind ;  man’s  body 
is  married  to  more  mind;  God’s  mind  is  so  great 
that  it  wears  the  universe  as  a  garment,  immanent  in 
all  things,  transcendent  over  all  things,  limited  by 
neither  matter  nor  space.  I  infer  that  the  same  God 
guides  me  and  the  monkey;  I  believe  that  we  shall 
arrive  sometime;  I  think  He  has  other  uses  for  me 
than  merely  those  embodied  in  my  earthly  career.  If 
the  same  good  God  has  other  uses  for  the  lower 
orders  of  creation  in  this  wonderfully  glorious  and 
evolving  universe,  I  shall  offer  no  objections,  be¬ 
cause  “God  is  the  Personal  Spirit,  perfectly  good, 
Who  in  holy  love  creates,  sustains,  and  orders  all.” 

But  the  most  serious  defect  of  Bryanism  is  not  in 
its  misinterpretation  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution. 


Bryanism  95 

That  is  serious  enough,  to  be  sure ;  but  the  truly  bad 
thing  about  it  is  its  spirit.  Mr.  Bryan  himself  is  a 
case  in  point.  Witness  his  “reply” — if  we  may  dig¬ 
nify  his  rejoinder  by  such  a  phrase — to  Professor 
Osborn  and  others.  Mixing  them  all  up  together, 
having  no  eye  for  thinkers  that  differ  as  widely  as 
the  poles,  he  places  the  atheistic  Haeckelian  and  the 
Christian  theist  all  in  the  same  boat,  and  shoves  them 
out  into  Bryanistic  seas  of  perdition.  “I  presume,” 
he  says,  “no  rejoinder  is  expected  (because,  evi¬ 
dently,  Bryan  had  overwhelmed  them  so  completely 
within  his  roaring  floods  of  knowledge)  to  the  an¬ 
swers  of  Professors  Osborn  and  Conklin,  but  I  am 
sure  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  trespass  upon  your  time 
long  enough  to  thank  you  for  the  compliment  you 
pay  me  in  having  two  professors  write  in  their  effort 
to  reply  to  one  layman.  (But  think  of  what  a  lay¬ 
man,  Mr.  Bryan!  The  editor  doubtless  measured 
the  force  opposed  to  the  professors  and  knew  it 
would  be  necessary  to  have  double  forces  on  hand  to 
resist  such  an  attack !)  .  .  .  The  answers  of  the  pro¬ 
fessors  whom  you  selected  have  exhibited  all  the 
characteristics  of  their  class.  They  misrepresent 
their  opponents,  look  with  contempt  upon  all  those 
who  do  not  exhaust  the  alphabet  in  setting  forth  their 
degrees,  and  evade  the  issue  which  they  pretend  to 
discuss.  The  evidence  upon  which  they  condemn  the 
Bible  would  not  be  sufficient  to  convict  an  habitual 


96  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

criminal  of  petty  larceny  in  any  court  in  Christen¬ 
dom.  .  .  .  But  as  far  as  evidence  can  be  drawn  from 
what  they  do  say,  it  is  evident  that  they  regard  the 
discovery  of  the  bones  of  a  five-toed  horse  as  a 
greater  event  than  the  birth  of  the  Christ.” 

This  sort  of  thing  may  smack  of  wit,  satire,  and 
sarcasm  all  combined.  The  fact  remains,  however, 
that  there  is  a  glaring  error  somewhere.  Professor 
Osborn  not  only  does  not  condemn  the  Bible;  he 
makes  a  noble  plea  for  it.  He  does  it  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  spirit,  too ;  but  not,  fortunately,  from  the  myopic 
viewpoint  of  Bryanism.  The  Bible  in  the  hands  of  a 
dogmatist  is  as  unseemly  as  a  swan  on  the  shore.  No 
wonder  distinguished  souls  have  ever  preferred  a 
hell  populated  by  open-minded  thinkers  to  a  heaven 
overcrowded  by  dry-as-dust  dogmatists. 

ii 

Yet  there  is  another  application  of  the  principle 
of  Bryanism.  Does  not  a  large  section  of  the  educa¬ 
tional  world  lay  itself  open  to  just  censure  for  teach¬ 
ing  a  one-sided  and  inadequate  conception  of  human 
life?  It  assumes  an  ultra-intellectual  attitude 
towards  everything.  It  lays  claim  not  to  an  out¬ 
grown  philosophy  of  the  universe,  such  as  Mr.  Bryan 
zealously  defends;  rather  does  it  lay  claim  to  and 
stridently  teach  a  scientific  mechanism  and  material¬ 
istic  philosophy  ill-adapted  to  man’s  many-sided 


Bryanism  97 

nature.  What  is  this  but  human  myopia  on  another 
side? 

Here,  indeed,  is  the  cause  of  much  of  this  half- 
baked  scientific  protest  against  misnamed  scientific 
teaching.  Living  in  an  age  of  specialists,  teachers 
are  readily  turned  into  human  machines,  grinding 
out  only  a  portion  of  the  grist  of  truth.  They  look 
at  one  side  of  a  proposition  so  constantly  that  they 
acquire  the  habit  of  mental  and  moral  nearsighted¬ 
ness.  Such  may  be  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  the 
expert.  But  is  not  the  price  exceedingly  high  ?  Are 
we  not  making  our  experts  unconscious  profiteers  in 
one-sided  intellectual  wares?  Moreover,  are  we  not 
compelled  to  admit  a  certain  truth  in  the  wag’s  defini¬ 
tion  :  An  expert  is  a  man  a  long  distance  from  home. 

Now  this  mistaken  emphasis  began  more  than  two 
generations  ago.  With  the  dawn  of  Darwinism,  man 
was  compelled  to  make  a  new  reckoning  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  world  and  of  human  society.  With  this  new 
clew  to  the  processes  of  nature  and  mankind,  the 
temptation  to  study  not  only  the  biological  aspects 
of  plants  and  animals  but  the  purely  physical  side  of 
man,  was  inevitable  and  irresistible.  The  world 
never  before  witnessed  such  an  army  of  scientific 
plodders  and  diggers.  But  a  man  cannot  give  him¬ 
self  entirely  over  to  digging  without  getting  a 
stooped  body.  Nor  can  a  company  of  scientists  de¬ 
vote  themselves  exclusively  to  a  consideration  of  the 


98  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

physical  side  of  human  life  without  developing  minds 
with  a  decisive  spiritual  stoop.  Mr.  Darwin  him¬ 
self  is  an  example  of  this  law.  His  familiar  and 
melancholy  confession  of  the  decay  of  his  youthful 
love  of  music  and  poetry  is  most  saddening.  Indeed, 
few  generations  have  witnessed  a  deeper  spiritual 
tragedy  than  that  enacted  by  Darwin,  Tyndall,  Hux¬ 
ley,  and  Spencer.  By  their  monumental  work  on 
behalf  of  science  and  truth  they  have  made  mankind 
their  debtor  forevermore.  Yet  were  they  themselves 
so  blinded  by  the  dust  flying  from  the  stones  cut  out 
of  their  enormous  scientific  quarry,  that  they  failed 
to  give  their  own  souls  that  genuine  and  definite 
opportunity  for  spiritual  development  to  which  they 
were  entitled — not  because  they  were  great  natural¬ 
ists,  but  because  they  were  human  beings. 

The  tragedy  was  all  the  more  poignant  because  it 
was  unnecessary.  Multitudes  of  Christians  have 
thanked  God  for  the  philosophy  of  evolution.  It 
has  not  only  furnished  them  with  an  intellectual  key 
opening  many  bewildering  doors  in  the  immense 
house  named  the  universe ;  it  has  vastly  enlarged  their 
conceptions  of  God,  their  appreciation  of  the  world, 
and  their  vision  of  human  destiny.  As  Professor 
Osborn  reminds  us,  Augustine  was  a  true  disciple  of 
the  philosophy  of  evolution.  So  was  John  Wesley, 
Lord  Kelvin,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Henry  Drum¬ 
mond,  and  a  host  of  others.  All  of  these  conclusively 


Bryanism  99 

prove  that  one  may  be  a  high  type  of  Christian  and 
at  the  same  time  enthusiastically  accept  the  doctrine 
of  development.  They  also  show  that  men  like 
Bryan  and  Haldeman,  while  unquestionably  entitled 
to  their  own  convictions,  merely  add  to  the  gayety 
of  nations  by  verbally  dechristianizing  those  who  do 
not  share  their  own  parochial  prepossessions. 

Nevertheless,  the  myopic  and  pedantic  attitude  of 
certain  professors  towards  religion,  even  morality 
itself,  is  to  be  deplored  and  discountenanced.  Dog¬ 
matic  ignorance  is  no  more  repellant  than  scholastic 
atheism.  Religious  fanaticism  is  quite  as  tolerable 
as  religious  scorn.  The  one  has  at  least  the  sanctions 
of  morality,  while  the  other  grazes  over  fields  of 
immoral  license.  These  untoward  conditions  in 
academic  circles,  we  are  reminded,  have  been  alarm¬ 
ingly  set  forth  through  Professor  Leuba’s  widely 
discussed  questionnaire.  Let  us  frankly  admit  that 
here  is  a  moral  situation  that  should  excite  the  grav¬ 
est  concern.  I  am  using  the  term  moral  advisedly 
and  in  its  deepest  implications.  Because  such  indif¬ 
ference,  narrowness,  learning,  and  ability,  all 
strangely  sputtering  in  one  huge  academic  melting 
pot,  and  directed  against  religion,  mankind’s  abiding 
and  transcendent  interest,  is  a  menace  to  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  society;  it  is  nothing  short  of  a  moral  and 
religious  calamity.  “Wherever  the  sentiment  of  right 
comes  in,”  says  Emerson,  “it  takes  precedence  of 


ioo  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

everything  else.  For  other  things  I  make  poetry  of 
them;  but  the  moral  sentiment  makes  poetry  of  me.” 
And  yet,  with  the  aid  of  Doctor  Leuba,  we  are  intro¬ 
duced  to  a  large  company  of  intellectuals  seemingly 
bent  on  knifing  “the  moral  sentiment”  to  death! 
That  is  decidedly  what  the  leaders  of  thought  ought 
not  to  be  engaged  in. 

And  what  but  a  tawdry,  tinseled,  rhetorical  Bry- 
anism — a  provincial,  nearsighted,  upstartish  outlook 
on  life — could  have  thrown  these  misled  and  mislead¬ 
ing  gentlemen  into  such  a  wayside  ditch  ?  To  assume 
that  man  is  an  intellectual  machine  solely  is  at  once 
the  height  and  depth  of  superidiocy.  “Abundance  of 
accomplishments  in  an  unsanctified  heart,”  we  read 
in  the  letters  of  William  James,  “only  make  one  a 
more  accomplished  devil.”  It  would  seem  almost 
incumbent  on  Doctor  Leuba’s  group,  in  view  of  the 
bigger,  better,  wiser,  and  more  learned  men  who  have 
hilariously  believed  in  immortality,  to  offer  more 
valid  reasons  for  being  caught  in  such  malodorous 
moral  backwash  on  the  River  of  Time,  stoically 
missing  the  “murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  Sea.” 
Is  it  because  they  are  only  one-third  men  who  have 
learned  to  manipulate  a  clever  mental  trap,  and  are 
not,  in  the  true  sense,  educated  at  all  ?  This  habit  we 
moderns  have  grown  of  calling  people  educated  who 
are  the  possessors  of  one  or  many  scholastic  degrees, 
is  perilously  overdone.  Profound  reverence  for 


Bryanism  IOI 

scholarship  is  one  of  the  marks  of  true  education; 
profound  disgust  for  its  counterfeit — a  lop-sided, 
conceited,  one-idead  Bryanism — is  the  inviolable 
right  and  duty  of  common  sense.  Why ,  therefore, 
do  these  gentlemen  give  such  inept  and  shallow  an¬ 
swers  to  questions  involving  the  deepest  issues  of 
human  welfare  and  destiny?  Surely,  it  is  not  be¬ 
cause  they  are  more  learned  and  vital  thinkers  than 
Roger  and  Francis  Bacon,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Wil¬ 
liam  Ewart  Gladstone,  Lord  Acton,  and  William 
James!  Reason  forces  us  to  base  this  tragic  delin¬ 
quency  on  other  than  sheer  intellectual  grounds.  The 
fact  is  probably  this :  These  so-called  educated  men 
are  terribly  miseducated  men.  They  are  clever  intel¬ 
lectuals,  only  superficially  schooled  in  moral  and  spir¬ 
itual  values,  blithely  Bryanesquing  through  chemical 
laboratories  and  university  halls.  They  do  not  be¬ 
long,  notwithstanding  their  cap  and  gown,  scalpel 
and  retort,  to  what  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
learned  Americans  has  characterized  as  man’s  abid¬ 
ing  necessity.  “It  is  this  free  capital  of  mind,”  he 
says,  “the  world  most  stands  in  need  of — this  free 
capital  that  awaits  investment  in  undertakings  spirit¬ 
ual  as  well  as  material,  which  advance  the  race  and 
help  men  to  a  better  life.”  No  man  belongs  to  the 
free  capital  of  mind  who  fails  to  develop  the  whole 
of  him.  Without  a  just  and  harmonious  unfolding 


102  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

of  all  his  powers,  he  is  only  a  mutilated  edition  of 
human  nature. 

However,  Mr.  Bryan’s  conclusion  that  these  men 
are  atheists  or  skeptics  because  they  accept  the  hy¬ 
pothesis  (which,  by  the  way,  as  Doctor  Fosdick  has 
shown,  is  not  just  a  guess,  as  the  Commoner  asserts) 
of  evolution,  is  thoroughly  unsound.  They  are  what 
they  are  for  the  same  reason  that  Mr.  Bryan  and  all 
the  rest  of  us  are  what  we  are :  that  is,  they  and  we 
are  one-sided,  prejudiced,  and  only  partially  devel¬ 
oped.  “We  talk  a  great  deal,”  says  a  real  thinker, 
“about  being  governed  by  mind,  by  intellect,  by 
intelligence,  in  this  boastful  day  of  ours;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  don’t  believe  that  one  man  out  of  a 
thousand  is  governed  by  his  mind.  Men,  no  matter 
what  their  training,  are  governed  by  their  passions, 
and  the  most  we  can  hope  to  accomplish  is  to  keep 
the  handsome  passions  in  the  majority.” 

hi 

* 

A  third  field  for  the  mischief  of  Bryanism  is  pol¬ 
itics.  Herein  does  it  execute  some  of  its  most  absurd 
as  well  as  its  most  serious  capers.  Not  only  Mr. 
Bryan  (though  perhaps  he  has  had  a  broader  experi¬ 
ence  in  this  field  than  most  people),  but  a  large 
majority  of  men  and  women,  approach  our  political 
obligations  with  a  kind  of  sixteen-to-one  mental  cal¬ 
iber,  seasoned  with  the  acrimony  and  side-stepping 


Bryanism  103 

of  an  Article  X  debate.  Or,  in  plain  English,  our 
much  discussion  has  not  really  hinged  upon  a  prin¬ 
ciple  at  all;  we  are  almost  entirely  interested  in  ap¬ 
proving  or  disapproving  a  person.  Our  loud 
affirmation  of  principles  consists  very  largely  in  the 
readjustment  of  our  personal  prejudices.  National 
policy,  after  all,  may  be  only  a  stalking-horse  to  run 
over  a  man.  In  doing  this,  we  exhibit  on  a  national 
scale  the  capacity  which  George  Meredith  attributes 
to  one  of  his  characters.  “She  had  the  art,”  he 
says,  “of  charging  permissible  words  with  explosive 
meanings.”  Only,  it  should  be  added,  we  strain  our 
ears  to  catch  the  full  roar  of  the  explosion,  let  the 
meaning  be  what  it  will.  Thus,  while  warmly  dis¬ 
cussing  aspects  of  political  action  during  the  past 
three  years,  now  and  then  somewhat  distantly  ap¬ 
proaching  a  principle  in  our  purblind  wanderings,  we 
have  been  constantly  and  invariably  aware  of  a  per¬ 
son.  Lodge’s  “Down-with-Wilson!”  at  Chicago 
struck  the  keynote  of  our  political  and  national  psy¬ 
chology  at  the  psychological  moment.  Subtle  and 
yet  tremendous  forces  of  jealousy  and  hatred,  con¬ 
fined  to  no  class  and  to  no  political  party,  but  per¬ 
meating  all  classes  and  parties,  had  been  in  operation 
before  the  Chicago  convention;  but  that  was  the 
hour  when  all  the  politically  disgruntled  and  the  in¬ 
sanely  jealous  began  to  have  their  day.  And  what 
a  day!  And,  also,  what  a  company  of  political  bed- 


104  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

fellows  America  has  entertained  during  this  stygian 
night  of  partisan,  myopic  Bryanism! 

Never,  surely,  since  the  planet  came  out  of  the 
firemist,  did  such  a  motley  gathering  of  human  beings 
crawl  into  such  a  political  bed  and  emit  such  snores 
of  patriotism !  Politics  do  indeed  make  strange  bed¬ 
fellows,  but  never  did  the  stars  in  their  courses  gaze 
upon  such  a  strange  lot  as  managed  to  pile  into  this 
infamous  and  historic  political  bed.  Just  one  glance 
through  the  door,  gentle  reader,  and  you  will  speedily 
pass  on  a  sadder  if  not  a  wiser  man.  Behold  Lodge 
and  Bryan  cheek  to  cheek  and  snore  to  snore :  be¬ 
hold  the  out-and-out  Hun  clasped  in  the  loving  em¬ 
brace  of  the  dyed-in-the-wool- America-first  Repub¬ 
lican;  behold  the  ruby-cheeked  son  of  Erin,  in  the 
normalcy  of  things  a  stickler  for  dollars  and  doings 
Democratic,  snuggling  up  to  that  stalwart  Roosevelt 
Republican,  James  Roscoe  Day;  behold  those  golden- 
ly  greased  machines,  Thompsonism  of  Chicago  and 
Murphyism  of  New  York,  grinding  out  their  anti- 
Wilsonian  music  in  the  contented  ear  of  the  Honor¬ 
able  James  Beck — he  of  ‘‘The  Passing  of  the  New 
Freedom”  fame;  yea,  behold,  and  take  a  parting 
glance  at  “the  whole  damned  crew” — to  borrow  a 
Miltonic  phrase — German,  Irish,  Italian,  French,  Re¬ 
publican,  Democrat,  Progressive,  Socialist,  Bolshe¬ 
vik,  Anarchist,  seasoned  with  George  Sylvester  Vie- 
reck’s  “Hymn  of  Hate !”  And  then  say,  whether  the 


Bryanism  105 

bed  of  Procrustes,  with  its  occupant  duly  “trimmed” 
in  the  matter  of  length,  long  or  short,  ever  slept  such 
a  motley,  fantastic,  international  group  of  amalga¬ 
mated  American  patriots!  Yet,  do  linger  just  one 
moment  longer,  I  beseech  you,  and  hear  these  holy 
patriots  talk  in  their  sleep!  “Down  with  Wilson!” 
— this  is  the  phlegmatic  night-call  of  Lodge  and 
Harvey  answered  by  the  myopic  duet  sleep-call  of 
Beck  and  Viereck — “Down  with  Wilson !” 

Once  there  was  a  man  by  the  name  of  Athanasius. 
Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  wisely  or  foolishly,  he 
had  the  good  fortune  to  cause  somebody  to  invent 
the  phrase :  “Athanasius  Against  the  World !”  It 
would  seem  to  mark  the  one  suggestive  thing  in  the 
meanest,  most  stupid,  most  vitriolic,  most  unreason¬ 
able,  most  un-American  period  of  American  history. 
For  it  has  been  and  still  is:  “Woodrow  Wilson 
Against  the  World!”  No  loftier  tribute,  I  think, 
could  be  paid  to  that  victorious  man.  He  looms  up 
as  the  one  sublime  success  in  a  world  of  dismal  fail¬ 
ure.  He  is  not  coming  back.  Providential  men  do 
not  come  back.  They  wait  upon  the  High  Hills  of 
Tomorrow  for  the  backward  to  climb  up  to  their 
heights ;  and  when  the  stragglers  have  reached  their 
clear  and  lofty  summits,  behold!  the  prophets  they 
stoned  are  not  there !  Already  they  have  pushed  on 
ahead !  On  and  forever  on  they  follow  the  Gleam ! 
Slowly — very  slowly — the  struggling  multitudes  shed 


106  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

their  poisoned  Nessus-robe  of  hate  and  misunder¬ 
standing.  They,  too,  lured  on  by  the  Light  that 
never  was,  on  sea  or  land,  begin  to  pursue  the  ideals 
for  which  it  is  sometimes  harder  to  agonizingly  and 
disappointedly  live  than  it  is  to  quickly  and  tragically 
die.  But  Bryanism,  whether  in  religion,  or  educa¬ 
tion,  or  politics,  is  painfully  slow  to  grasp  this  truth. 


VI 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street" 

EDITOR  Big  Sandy  News: — Inasmuch  as  I  was 
among  the  disappointed  ones,  I  have  it  in  my 
heart  to  set  down  some  afterthoughts  concerning  the 
memorable  centennial  and  home-coming  week  re¬ 
cently  celebrated  by  the  dearest  town  in  the  world. 
But  these  afterthoughts  are  after  only  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  being  written  after  the  golden  week; 
they  have  been  entertained  and  thought  through  be¬ 
fore.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  they  fairly 
haunted  me  when  memory  was  especially  quickened 
by  the  events  which  were  crowded  into  the  week 
itself.  I  had  hoped  that  it  might  be  convenient  for 
our  efficient  committee  to  set  the  date  in  September 
rather  than  August,  as  I  had  an  engagement  of  a 
year’s  standing  for  the  latter  month.  At  one  time 
it  seemed  possible  for  me  to  come  anyway,  and  I 
was  just  ready  to  wire  the  program  committee,  ask¬ 
ing  for  the  privilege  of  a  sermon  appropriate  to  the 
occasion.  But  the  tide  of  events  turned  against  me. 
Nevertheless,  I  did  come  home  in  spirit,  though  my 
bodily  presence  was  detained  at  a  distance  of  a 
thousand  miles. 

107 


io8  A  Moneyless  Magnate 


i 

My  first  afterthought  centers  about  the  Big  Sandy 
News  and  its  remarkably  fine  memorial  number. 
Having  been  a  printer’s  devil  myself,  and  knowing 
something  of  stoking  the  fires  of  energy  necessary 
to  getting  out  an  average  newspaper,  I  was  pro¬ 
foundly  impressed  with  the  skill  and  toil,  both  mental 
and  mechanical,  which  went  into  the  making  of  an 
edition  that  will  be  long  treasured  by  every  loyal 
Louisaian.  The  work  of  going  over  the  files  of  the 
News  for  many  years  past  that  we  might  have  a 
kind  of  historic  moving  picture  film  in  personal  and 
general  references,  was  immense.  As  the  edition  un¬ 
rolled  its  glowing  pages  before  my  admiring  eyes  and 
grateful  heart,  I  felt  like  shouting,  not  merely,  “Big 
Sandy  Against  the  World,”  but :  “The  Big  Sandy 
News  Against  the  World!” 

Nor  can  I  resist  adding,  in  this  connection,  that  I 
am  heartily  proud  to  have  begun  life,  even  before 
the  “teen”  age  was  upon  me,  in  the  printing  office  of 
the  Big  Sandy  News.  I  count  those  among  the 
happiest  days  of  a  happy  life.  Even  the  memory  of 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  I  pursued  those  influential 
and  formative  years  as  devil,  printer,  foreman  and 
assistant  manager  is  of  the  essence  of  pure  delight. 
Should  I  live  to  be  a  centenarian,  no  day  will  stand 
out  more  clearly  in  mental  perspective  than  that  first 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street"  109 

morning  when  the  Editor  set  me  to  sorting  “pi.”  It 
was  a  radiant  Monday  morning.  On  the  previous 
Saturday  or  Sunday — I  am  not  sure  which — Uncle 
Henry  Sullivan  told  me  that  arrangements  had  been 
made  for  me  to  begin  work  the  following  Monday ; 
that  I  was  to  receive  one  dollar  per  week  for  six 
months;  that  I  was  to  come  and  live  at  Grand¬ 
mother  Sullivan’s  and  pay  my  board  by  carrying  up 
the  coal  and  kindling  from  certain  rather  dark  re¬ 
gions,  as  my  boyish  imagination  pictured  them,  un¬ 
der  that  dear  old  brick  house,  now  long  level  with 
the  dust,  but  which  will  ever  be  synonymous  with  an 
exceedingly  happy  childhood.  Such  a  grandmother, 
and  such  kind-hearted,  indulgent  uncles  it  would  be 
hard  to  surpass !  To  have  been  enriched  with  a  noble 
parentage — that  is  something  to  be  everlastingly 
thankful  for ;  and  then  to  have  had  this  supplemented 
by  such  additional  parental  hearts — why,  it  makes 
one  feel,  with  Wordsworth,  that  vows  had  been  taken 
for  him,  indeed. 

But  getting  a  job  with  the  News  and  a  place  to 
stay  did  not  solve  the  whole  of  the  problem  con¬ 
fronting  me.  It  was  also  necessary  to  obtain  my 
father’s  consent.  Having  reached  the  rather  callow 
age  of  twelve  years,  it  is  quite  possible  that  I  did  not 
go  about  this  phase  of  the  matter  very  diplomatically. 
At  any  rate,  on  going  out  home  Sunday  afternoon 
and  telling  my  father  of  the  new  realms  of  inviting 


no  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

adventure  awaiting  me  in  the  form  of  a  printer’s 
devil,  I  found  him  decidedly  unfavorable.  Yet,  as 
everybody  knows,  he  had  a  soul  of  velvet  under  an 
apparently  harsh  exterior.  His  children  knew  this 
both  by  instinct  and  experience  and  habitually  took 
advantage  of  it.  So,  having  gotten  my  meager  be¬ 
longings  together  in  a  kind  of  improvised  knapsack; 
and  realizing,  moreover,  that  my  bare  feet  and  the 
open  gate  might  see  me  safely  through  the  danger 
zone  of  switches  that  were  frequently  threatened 
and  rarely  applied,  I  made  for  the  dusty  road,  the 
town  hill,  and  the  land  of  my  dreams — which  hap¬ 
pened  to  be  the  old  red  brick  clerk’s  office  in  the 
court  house  square. 

All  these  hopes  and  fears,  mark  you,  were  pressed 
into  that  fateful  Sunday.  So  eager  was  I  to  enter 
my  career  of  deviltry  that  I  slept  little  that  night. 
Consequently,  Monday  morning  found  me  up  before 
the  dawn  and  Captain  Freese’s  most  alert  roosters. 
Taking  up  my  position  on  the  Main  Street  stile  of 
the  old  fence  surrounding  the  court  house,  I  began 
a  long  period  of  “watchful  waiting.”  Now,  to  be 
perfectly  frank,  and  in  the  interest  of  keeping  this 
record  straight, — and  moreover,  if  hard  pressed,  I 
could  subpoena  Miss  Willie  Burgess  that  was  as  a 
material  witness  in  the  case — in  those  days  the  Edi¬ 
tor  of  the  Big  Sandy  News  was  not  up  as  early  on 
Monday  and  Thursday  mornings  as  on  other  morn- 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street”  hi 

ings  of  the  week.  Hence  my  waiting  from  about 
four  a.  m.  until  sometime  between  eight  and  nine 
a.  m.  At  the  time,  of  course,  I  was  blissfully  un¬ 
aware  of  the  reason  for  this  somewhat  tardy  ap¬ 
pearance  of  the  Editor  on  Monday  morning.  But 
we  learn  much  in  the  come  and  go  of  the  years. 
Past  midlife  now,  I  have  concluded  that  from  the 
days  of  Helen  of  Troy  down  to  this  good  hour, 
young  men  have  been  inclined  to  reach  their  places 
of  business  rather  late  on  Monday  mornings;  and 
if  all  the  young  men  in  history  have  been  as  fortunate 
as  those  following  the  unwritten  but  very  effective 
laws  of  Louisa’s  social  code — inasmuch  as  Wednes¬ 
day  evening  happens  to  precede  Thursday  morning 
— the  latter  may  likewise  be  included  in  this  observa¬ 
tion  ! 

Two  outstanding  days  of  these  seven  or  eight 
years  have  marked  themselves  in  my  memory  quite 
definitely.  One  was  the  late  Thursday  afternoon 
when  the  Editor  and  Mart  Conley  (no  “devil”  ever 
had  a  better  foreman  than  he!)  concluded  that  I  was 
physically  sturdy  enough  to  “ink”  that  queer  little 
old  Army  press.  Talk  about  the  thrill  that  comes 
once  in  a  lifetime!  I  can  feel  the  effects  of  that  en¬ 
chanting  experience  after  more  than  thirty  years. 
My  self-importance  took  on  such  obvious  dimensions 
that  the  Editor,  foreman,  Boyd  Ferguson,  Jeff  Wil¬ 
son,  Ben  Strachan — as  well  as  John  Stewart,  Milt 


1 12  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

Burns,  Noll  Garred,  John  Ratcliff e,  and  Arthur 
Hughes,  who  often  came  in  to  “josh”  me — must 
have  had  serious  doubts  of  the  future  capacity  of 
my  hatband! 

The  other  unforgettable  day  was  that  Thursday, 
some  years  later,  when  the  News  came  out,  bear¬ 
ing  this  significant  line  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner 
of  the  editorial  page : 

Fred  Shannon ,  Asst.  Manager. 

Well,  I  don’t  know  how  John  D.  felt  when  he 
became  the  richest  man  in  the  world;  or  how  E.  J. 
Buffington — another  Big  Sandian  almost ! — felt 
when  he  was  chosen  President  of  the  Illinois  Steel 
Company;  or  how  Woodrow  Wilson  felt  when,  as 
the  late  Joseph  Choate  says,  the  great  President  pro¬ 
duced  state  papers  than  which  there  have  been  no 
greater  since  the  foundation  of  our  government. 
But  this  I  do  know — not  one  could  have  felt  any 
bigger  than  I  did  on  that  historic  day  when  man¬ 
kind  were  appraised  of  the  fact  that  Fred  Shannon 
was  henceforth  assistant  manager  of  the  Big  Sandy 
News!  If  we  are  really  no  bigger  than  we  feel, 
I  was  vastly  bigger  on  that  day  three  decades  ago 
than  I  am  this  morning. 

Quite  seriously,  however,  those  were  deeply  fortu¬ 
nate  days  for  me.  In  the  first  place,  I  was  enamored 
of  the  printing  business.  William  Morris,  poet, 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street ”  1 13 

decorator,  and  translator  of  the  Icelandic  sagas,  once 
exclaimed :  “Would  God  He  had  made  me  a  printer 
from  my  mother’s  womb !”  Possessing  not  even  a 
vestige  of  the  Englishman’s  artistic  genius,  yet  my 
early  love  of  typesetting  and  the  printing  art  has 
given  me  a  slight  appreciation  of  the  ardor  glowing 
through  his  words,  which  were  thrust  into  my  mem¬ 
ory  many  years  ago.  In  the  second  place,  no  lad 
was  ever  more  fortunate  in  his  employer.  Naturally, 
by  virtue  of  appreciation  if  not  by  any  personal  con¬ 
tribution  on  my  own  part,  I  have  continuously  en¬ 
joyed  a  large  share  of  the  success  which  has  justly 
crowned  our  local  newspaper’s  handsome  career! 

Here  I  have  rambled  along  too  much  already,  and 
only  one  “afterthought”  has  been  exposed,  while 
there  are  very  many  more  in  the  background !  “Space 
is  as  nothing  to  spirit”  is  excellent  poetry;  but 
“space,”  as  reckoned  by  editors,  cannot  be  measured 
by  such  intangible  rods.  However,  I  am  going  to 
ask  for  room  for  one  other  afterthought,  even  though 
it  may  have  to  be  run  “solid.”  (Ed.  Spencer,  at 
least,  does  not  need  an  interpreter  for  this  shop 
talk !) 


11 

The  other  thought  relates  to  the  spiritual  phase 
of  the  centennial  and  homecoming  week.  I  do  not 
use  the  term  in  any  narrow  or  exclusive  sense,  but 


1 14  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

rather  in  its  inclusive  and  enriching  content.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  joy  of  the  homecoming  lifts  the 
spiritual  feature  into  high  and  beautiful  relief.  It 
reminds  us  that  human  beings  are  chiefly  moved 
and  ruled  by  noble  sentiment,  which  is  essentially 
spiritual.  And  once  we  have  set  our  feet  upon  this 
path,  how  quietly  and  surely  our  best  memories  turn 
to  the  Christian  Church,  and  those  who  were  and 
are  fellow-helpers  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Take 
the  churches  out  of  Louisa  during  these  hundred 
years,  and  what  a  different  homecoming  it  would 
have  been!  Indeed,  one  wonders  if  the  town  would 
have  survived  its  hundred  summers  and  winters  at 
all?  For  even  the  people  who  never  enter  a  church 
would  be  the  first  to  move  away  from  a  churchless 
town. 

Yet  all  this  is  rather  negative,  when  my  heart  is 
filled  with  positive  gratitude  to  those  who  were 
“found  faithful”  in  the  days  of  my  childhood  and 
youth.  One  of  the  first  and  best  teachers  I  ever  had 
was  Hannah  Lackey.  I  have  reminded  that  heroic 
soul  more  than  once  of  my  somewhat  informal 
matriculation  into  her  classes  in  the  Masonic  Hall. 
When  the  bell  rang  on  that  first  morning  of  my 
school  days,  I  rushed  in  with  a  company  of  other 
little  savages  and  preempted  the  first  convenient  seat. 
After  much  tribulation,  she  mastered  the  noise,  or¬ 
ganized  her  classes,  and  got  down  to  business. 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street”  115 

Things  were  going  along  famously,  when  lo!  the 
organized  stillness  was  broken  by  the  most  ear- 
splitting  and  shrillest  of  whistles!  With  a  sort  of 
Lord  Kitchener  judgment  seat  in  her  face,  Hannah 
calmly  asked:  “Will  the  boy  who  made  that  noise 
please  stand  up?”  Evidently  thinking  that  school 
was  a  place  in  which  to  display  one’s  ability  in  pro¬ 
ducing  the  loudest  noise,  and  proudly  convinced  that 
I  deserved  a  reward,  I  promptly  stood  up.  Sum¬ 
moned  to  the  teacher’s  desk,  I  was  told  to  remain 
standing.  Somehow,  in  the  stress  of  her  work,  the 
teacher  forgot  to  countermand  her  order  in  due  sea¬ 
son  and  I  just  kept  on  standing.  Now,  standing  on 
your  feet,  after  a  little,  becomes  quite  irksome.  Then 
follows  a  period  of  shifting  the  weight  from  one  foot 
to  the  other.  That,  too,  after  a  while,  fails  to  give 
the  desired  relief.  To  make  a  long  story  short,  when 
the  kindly  teacher’s  attention  was  attracted  by  the 
suppressed  whining  of  the  very  tired  human  midget 
behind  her,  she  dried  his  tears  and  sent  him  back  to 
his  seat.  So  far  as  I  recall,  that  was  the  first  and 
last  time  that  I  ever  turned  the  atmosphere  of  a 
schoolroom  into  a  shrill,  whistling  screech ! 

I  think  of  other  teachers,  too — Davis  Holt,  now 
an  honored  minister  of  the  Gospel,  John  Hibbard, 
R.  C.  McClure,  W.  D.  O’Neal  and  Doctor  G.  W. 
Wroten,  who,  though  I  was  too  young  to  be  in  his 
classes,  in  later  years  exerted  a  most  helpful  influence 


n6  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

over  me,  as  he  did  over  a  host  of  others.  Two 
teachers  leaving  a  distinct  impression  upon  the  public 
schools  of  Louisa  were  Professors  Anderson  and 
Welch.  I  was  working  in  the  printing  office  during 
their  time,  but  participated  in  the  Friday  evening 
debating  society  which  they  organized  and  fostered. 
Jay  Burton,  Will  O’Neal,  John  Akers,  Professors 
Anderson  and  Welch  and  myself  were  the  ring-lead¬ 
ers  of  these  weekly  talkfests.  Once  Uncle  Will 
Moore — the  very  thought  of  him  is  like  delicious 
fragrance  rising  from  October  gardens! — was  pres¬ 
ent  when  I  had  a  declamation  on  Joan  of  Arc.  Uncle 
Will  was  nothing  if  not  movingly  appreciative,  and 
no  doubt  placed  a  much  higher  estimate  upon  my 
youthful  effort  than  it  deserved.  Nevertheless,  his 
enthusiastic  commendation  gave  me  a  taste  of  the  joy 
of  moving  people  by  the  power  of  speech. 

It  is  evident  by  this  time  that  I  intend  keeping  the 
schools  and  churches  together.  These  two  great  in¬ 
stitutions  properly  belong  together,  in  no  formal 
and  sectarian  manner,  to  be  sure,  but  by  the  far 
deeper  and  more  vital  ties  of  shaping  and  creative 
ideals  they  nourish.  Any  education  that  is  not  in¬ 
spired  by  Christian  principles  becomes  a  curse  and 
ultimately  pulls  down  the  house  of  civilization  in 
ruins.  Therefore,  one  can  scarcely  overestimate  the 
religious  tragedy  of  a  nation  that  fails  to  inculcate 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street ”  117 

the  spirit  and  teachings  of  Christ  in  the  training  of 
its  youth. 

Turning  from  the  schools  to  the  churches,  I  recall 
some  of  the  ministers  to  whom  I  am  greatly  indebted. 
Among  these  were  the  Revs.  Cook,  Cox,  Simpson, 
Hiner,  Jolly,  Williamson,  French,  Reid,  Switzer,  and, 
in  a  special  sense,  Rev.  John  Hampton  and  Rev. 
Ernest  Robinson.  And  then  when  one  turns  from 
the  clergy  to  the  laity — those  lovely,  cultured,  conse¬ 
crated  souls  who  are  spiritual  jewels  in  Louisa’s 
crown  of  rejoicing — there  is  simply  not  space  to 
mention  all  of  them !  Where  would  the  ending  be 
were  one  to  begin  expatiating  on  his  indebtedness  to 
those  who  blessed  and  inspired  his  boyhood  and  later 
years?  I  think  of  such  families  as  the  Wallaces, 
Northups,  Stewarts,  Borders,  Waldecks,  Laynes, 
Yateses,  Burchetts,  Snyders,  Burgesses,  Burnses, 
Castles,  Freeses,  Conleys,  Sullivans,  Thomases, 
O’Briens,  Gunnells,  Lackeys,  Vinsons,  Garreds, 
Billupses,  McClures,  and — well,  is  it  not  a  fragrant 
human  lane  that  has  no  turning  ?  Plainly,  one  is  con¬ 
fronted  by  a  process  of  elimination;  therefore,  I  am 
going  to  speak  of  one  or  two  concretely  and  in  par¬ 
ticular.  They  will  serve  as  specimens.  Thus  held 
up,  Louisa  may  paraphrase  the  words  of  the  Mother 
of  the  Gracchi :  “These  are  some  of  my  jewels !” 

The  first  is  Uncle  Roll  Burns.  Among  my  earliest 
memories  is  the  unfading  picture  of  him  as  Suoer- 


Ii8  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

intendent  of  our  Sunday  School.  He  was  one  of  the 
best  any  school  ever  had,  I  know.  Lovable,  devout, 
familiar  with  the  Bible,  and  gloriously  faithful,  he 
wrought  himself  into  our  affections.  One  of  his 
outstanding  qualifications  for  that  high  office  was 
his  deep-down  love  of  little  children,  young  men  and 
maidens.  I  am  still  keenly  aware  of  the  fine  ecstasy 
that  fairly  possessed  him  as  he  worked  in  the  school. 
He  had  a  sweet,  mellow  voice  for  singing,  and  he 
used  it  as  one  who  sang  with  the  spirit  and  the  un¬ 
derstanding.  Somehow,  in  thinking  of  Uncle  Roll, 
there  comes  to  mind  an  incident  in  the  life  of  the 
great  Lister.  In  one  of  the  children’s  hospitals  in 
which  he  practiced,  one  little  tot,  says  his  biographer, 
was  asked  what  he  thought  of  the  great  surgeon. 
“Oh,”  exclaimed  the  child,  “every  time  he  comes  in 
he  just  seems  to  be  looking  for  a  little  head  to  pat!’" 
How  many  little  heads  Uncle  Roll  managed  to  pat  I 
And  in  that  gentle,  kindly  pat  did  he  not  leave  some- 
thing  akin  to  sweet  apostolic  memories  for  some  of 
us  who  are  still  climbing,  however  falteringly,  the 
upward  way?  The  summer  before  he  went  away,  I 
took  him  for  a  little  drive  about  town  and  out  into 
the  country.  On  returning  home,  and  just  before 
getting  out  of  the  car,  he  said :  “Fred,  I  want  the 
Lord  Jesus  to  be  able  to  say,  ‘Roll,  there  is  something 
that  you  can  still  do  for  Me  down  in  Louisa  that  no 
one  else  can  do,  and  I’m  depending  on  you  to  do  it.’  ” 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street ”  119 

Little  wonder  that  the  dear  man  of  God  kept  his 
spiritual  greenness  until  he  slipped  away  into  “the 
Land  of  Beginning  Again!”  I  shall  never  be  able 
to  fully  discharge  my  indebtedness  to  Uncle  Roll. 
As  I  have  gone  over  the  country  telling  “the  old,  old 
story,”  his  name  and  influence  have  wound  through 
it  like  a  lovely  song  that  sometimes  steals  unbidden 
into  the  music  that  comes  only  in  dreams. 

The  other  character  is  a  woman — and  still  in  the 
flesh,  I  am  thankful  to  say!  We  are  in  the  habit  of 
reserving  most  of  our  good  things  to  say  about  the 
dead.  This  habit  has  got  itself  coined  into  such 
phrases  as,  “Speak  kindly  of  the  dead.”  One  has 
no  quarrel  with  the  fitness  thus  suggested ;  the  criti¬ 
cism  comes  by  way  of  contrast  in  the  fact  that  we 
refuse  to  the  living  those  tokens  of  lovingkindness 
which  we  lavish  all  too  freely  upon  silent  forms  and 
faces.  Long  ago  I  resolved  to  spend  more  time  in 
making  garlands  for  the  living  and  less  time  in 
botanizing  over  graves  grown  rank  with  flowers 
of  regret.  I  believe  that  the  thing  is  Christian,  and 
I  know  it  to  be  goldenly  rewardful. 

High  up  in  any  list  of  the  great  women  it  has 
been  my  privilege  to  know,  the  names  of  my  Grand¬ 
mother,  Mrs.  C.  C.  Sullivan  and  Mrs.  F.  T.  D. 
Wallace,  must  inevitably  appear.  What  I  owe  to  the 
first  by  inheritance  and  training,  and  to  the  second 
by  inspiration  and  example,  is  far  more  than  can  be 


120  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

put  into  words.  Of  the  many  generous  character¬ 
izations  in  your  centennial  number,  Mr.  Editor,  there 
was  none  truer  than  this :  “Louisa  has  no  more 
highly  prized  citizen  than  Mrs.  Wallace.”  The  fact 
is,  I  could  take  your  words  as  a  text  and  write  a 
three-column  sermon  on  Christian  citizenship,  with¬ 
out  so  much  as  moving  my  position  one  foot  farther 
back  from  the  resounding  shore  of  Lake  Michigan. 
I  would  guarantee  to  prove  that  if  the  average  citi¬ 
zenry  of  Louisa  and  the  world  measured  up  to  the 
standard  attained  by  that  elect  lady,  several  thousand 
preachers  in  America  would  be  forced  to  look  for 
other  jobs!  When  I  recall  some  of  the  crowned 
queens  of  history,  and  then  set  alongside  them  this 
and  other  uncrowned  queens  of  Louisa,  I  seem  to  get 
a  new  understanding  of  Christian  queenliness. 
Spontaneously  do  the  Master’s  words  spring  up  in 
the  heart :  “O  woman,  great  is  thy  faith :  be  it  unto 
thee  even  as  thou  wilt.” 

Just  a  word  concerning  our  little  colony  of  Louisa- 
ians  here  in  Chicago.  Mrs.  Doctor  Funk  and  her 
daughter,  Pauline,  are  well  known  and  helping  the 
world  along.  As  to  my  neighbor  and  boyhood 
friend,  Luther  Walter,  were  we  not  all  proud  to 
have  him  bring  back  home  such  a  splendid  edition 
of  manhood?  He  is  one  of  our  big,  upstanding 
lawyers  and  citizens.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say  how 
much  Luther  owes  to  his  noble  wife,  but  I  fancy  that 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street”  121 


he  would  say:  “Everything  that’s  good!”  Do  you 
wonder  that  I  am  happy  to  have  such  homefolk  near 
by? 


hi 

And  now,  truly,  was  not  the  homecoming  greatly 
worth  while?  What  friendships  were  refreshed! 
What  acquaintances  renewed!  What  eloquent  by¬ 
gones  recalled !  What  memories  transfigured  and 
reverently  deepened !  What  vanished  faces  kept 
coming  tenderly  near!  What  defeats  forgotten, 
what  victories  glorified!  These  were  among  the 
thoughts  that  continued  winging  and  singing  in  the 
soul  of  one  who  was  far  away  and  yet  constantly 
near  during  Old  Home  Week.  I  measure  my  words 
when  I  say  that  such  a  feeling  and  atmosphere  as 
were  there  generated  and  manifested  is  one  of  the 
supremely  deep  needs  of  the  whole  world.  Suppose 
such  a  feeling  of  fellowship  and  friendliness  should 
descend  like  an  atmosphere  upon  our  own  and  other 
nations.  I  tell  you  it  would  do  more  toward  solving 
mankind’s  tremendous  problems  than  all  the  patched- 
up  social  quackeries,  national  cunning  and  political 
cleverness  can  ever  hope  to  accomplish.  Every  move¬ 
ment  worth  while  must  be  fed  upon  the  vitalities  of 
good-will.  “Interest,”  said  Woodrow  Wilson,  in  his 
great  Manchester  speech,  “does  not  bind  men  to¬ 
gether;  interest  separates  men.  There  is  only  one 


122  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

thing  that  can  bind  people  and  that  is  a  common 
devotion  to  right.”  And  how  can  this  common  de¬ 
votion  to  right  be  exalted,  lifted  up  to  great  heights 
of  highmindedness  and  unselfish  beauty,  save  in  the 
sweet,  clear,  sunny  atmosphere  of  the  soul’s  home¬ 
comings  and  fellowships? 

Therefore,  more  and  more  as  the  years  run  swiftly 
away,  one  Louisaian  is  highly  resolved  to  tell  men 
and  women  of  every  creed,  color,  nation,  and  politics, 
that  the  only  solution  of  right-living  and  happiness  in 
this  or  any  other  world  is  that  given  by  our  Lord 
and  Master.  It  is  close  at  hand,  eager  to  be  tried, 
and  as  sure  to  win  as  the  tides  run  in  and  out  at  the 
moon’s  mysterious  call.  When  statesmen  learn  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  bigger  and  more  important 
than  nationality,  and  the  sole  secret  of  all  true  na¬ 
tionality;  that  fraternity  is  fairer  and  more  efficient 
than  blind  partisanship;  that  right-doing  is  more  to 
be  desired  than  getting  back  to  the  state  houses  of 
London,  Washington,  Paris,  or  Berlin;  that,  in  the 
long  run,  it  is  the  highest  wisdom  to  practice  right¬ 
eousness  and  turn  away  from  iniquity — why,  the 
world  itself  shall  then  feel  the  thrill  of  such  a  fellow¬ 
ship  as  throbbed  through  Louisa’s  homecoming 
week.  But  let  us  not  forget  that  the  vast  majority 
of  our  leaders  are  precisely  what  we  want  them  to 
be.  Now  and  then  there  are  sublime  exceptions — 
a  Washington,  a  Lincoln,  and  a  Wilson  point  us  to 


A  Letter  to  “ Main  Street”  123 

the  uplands  whether  we  follow  them  or  not.  But  in 
these  white-hot  modern  years,  when  history  is  being 
made  so  fast  that  it  cannot  be  written,  mankind  can¬ 
not  subsist  upon  its  unique  exceptions.  How  im¬ 
perative,  therefore,  that  the  vision  of  the  average 
man  and  woman  should  be  cleanly  Christian.  For 
if  our  citizenship  becomes  Christian,  it  will  drive 
from  public  life,  with  a  whip  of  cords  knit  of 
righteous  thongs,  every  time-serving  politician  who 
dares  defy  its  commands  and  better  instincts.  What 
a  mountain-high  responsibility  rests  upon  the  citi¬ 
zens  of  America  this  very  hour,  when  war-clouds 
again  blacken  the  horizon  of  the  world!  If,  after 
all,  they  should  be  woven  out  of  the  treacherous 
shreds  of  our  international  phariseeism,  the  Lord 
have  mercy  upon  us !  We  may  nonchalantly  say  that 
it  is  none  of  our  business.  Nevertheless,  righteous¬ 
ness,  judgment,  and  doom  do  not  pause  to  parley 
with  our  smug  and  ignorant  self-satis factions.  Once 
the  conditions  of  the  law  of  “the  sudden  leap”  have 
been  fulfilled,  they  descend  as  swift  as  lightning  and 
as  irrevocable  as  death;,  and  in  their  wake  there  is 
the  desolating  evidence  of  ruined  cities  and  mounded 
wheatfields.  And  all  because  Jerusalem  knew  not 
the  day  of  her  visitation ! 

If  these  more  sober  reflections  are  a  part  of  my 
expression  of  gratitude  and  devotion  to  the  town  of 
my  childhood  and  youth,  it  is  because  I  there  learned 


124  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

that  “whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also 
reap.”  The  years  have  taught  me  that  this  unbend- 
able  law  is  not  merely  individual,  but  social,  indus¬ 
trial,  political,  national,  and  international  as  well. 
That  is  why  I  pray  the  spirit  of  homecoming  may 
come  sweetly  home  to  every  heart  in  the  wide,  wide 
world.  Therein  is  hope  for  despair;  forgiveness  for 
hatred;  love  for  misunderstanding;  peace  for  storm 
and  fury.  It  is  God’s  way  of  bringing  Heaven  to 
earth  and  of  lifting  earth  up  to  Heaven.  There  is  no 
other.  Then  why  should  we  not  begin  again,  and 
right  where  we  are?  Tell  me,  all  ye  who  have  been 
a  part  of  these  hundred  years,  some  of  whom  have 
increased  in  goods  and  attained  what  we  call  worldly 
success, — tell  me  if,  in  journeying  about  the  world, 
you  have  come  upon  any  words  so  big  with  hope 
and  wonder  and  fruition  as  these :  “Verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  Except  ye  turn,  and  become  as  little  children,  ye 
shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.” 
Consider  that  here  is  the  secret  of  all  true  genius :  It 
is  just  the  art  of  carrying  the  spirit  of  childhood, 
with  its  simplicity,  its  freshness,  its  trustfulness,  its 
forgiveness,  into  the  outlooks  and  purposes  of  ma¬ 
ture  life.  And  this  is  what  I  am  going  to  tell  that 
great  congregation  assembled  from  many  states  and 
countries  and  walks  and  stations,  in  Central  Church 
next  Sunday  morning.  One  does  not  have  to  go 
anywhere  in  quest  of  the  Angel  of  Happiness ;  he  is 


A  Letter  to  “Main  Street”  125 

standing  upon  our  own  doorsills  pleading  to  be  let 
in.  Then  is  it  not  yours  and  mine,  O  friend,  simply 
to  open  the  door  and  let  in  our  waiting  Angel  that 
we  may  experience  the  joy  of  our  own  deeper  home¬ 
coming?  And  however  imperfectly  I  tell  the  story 
to  that  great  throng,  I  shall  accusingly  feel  that  I 
might  have  done  better  because  I  had  in  dear  old 
Louisa  such  a  happy  childhood;  because  there  my 
loved  ones  either  live  or  sleep;  because  there  life’s 
richest  friendships  began  and  continue ;  and  because 
I  think  Pine  Hill  Cemetery  as  good  a  spot  to  hear 
the  golden  tones  of  the  Angel  of  the  Resurrection 
as  any  bit  of  God’s  Acre  in  the  wide,  wide  world. 
Wherefore,  as  we  begin  the  second  century  of 
Louisa’s  career,  let  us  think  much  of  “The  Child  in 
Me,”  so  wondrously  sung  by  May  Riley  Smith : 

“She  follows  me  about  my  House  of  Life, 

(This  happy  little  ghost  of  my  dead  Youth!) 

She  has  no  part  in  Time’s  relentless  strife, 

She  keeps  her  old  simplicity  and  truth — 

And  laughs  at  grim  Mortality, 

This  deathless  Child  that  stays  with  me — 

(This  happy  little  ghost  of  my  dead  Youth!) 

My  House  of  Life  is  weather-stained  with  years — 
(O  Child  in  Me,  I  wonder  why  you  stay.) 

Its  windows  are  bedimmed  with  rain  of  tears, 

The  walls  have  lost  their  rose,  its  thatch  is  gray. 
One  after  one  its  guests  depart, 

So  dull  a  host  is  my  old  heart. 

(O  Child  in  Me,  I  wonder  why  you  stay!) 


126  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

For  jealous  Age,  whose  face  I  would  forget, 

Pulls  the  bright  flowers  you  bring  me  from  my  hair 
And  powders  it  with  snow ;  and  yet — and  yet 
I  love  your  dancing  feet  and  jocund  air. 

I  have  no  taste  for  caps  of  lace 
To  tie  about  my  faded  face — 

I  love  to  wear  your  flowers  in  my  hair. 

O  Child  in  Me,  leave  not  my  House  of  Clay 
Until  we  pass  together  through  the  Door, 

When  lights  are  out,  and  Life  has  gone  away 
And  we  depart  to  come  again  no  more. 

We  comrades  who  have  traveled  far 
Will  hail  the  Twilight  and  the  Star, 

And  smiling,  pass  together  through  the  Door!” 


VII 


Henry  Ward  Beecher 

THE  outstanding  dates  in  Beecher’s  life  are  as 
follows :  He  was  born  in  Litchfield,  Ct.,  June 
24,  1813;  he  graduated  from  Amherst  College  in 
1834,  and  from  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  Cincin¬ 
nati,  O.,  in  1837 ;  he  was  ordained  at  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  Lawrenceburg,  Ind.,  having  supplied  the 
church  from  May,  1837,  to  November  9,  1838;  he 
was  installed  at  Indianapolis  July  31,  1839;  he  was 
dismissed  from  Indianapolis  September  19,  1847; 
he  was  installed  at  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn, 
October  10,  1847;  died  in  the  same  city  March 
8,  1887. 

Thus,  within  these  dates  lived  and  wrought  this 
dateless  man;  for  Beecher  is  like  an  immense  opal. 
One  has  to  view  him  from  many  angles  to  get  any¬ 
thing  like  an  adequate  measurement  of  his  colossal, 
innate  genius.  As  of  the  precious  stone,  so  of  his 
many-sided  personality — with  each  new  turning 
some  hitherto  unrevealed  splendor  breaks  out.  His 
genius  contains  so  many  facets  that  he  stands  quite 
apart  from  ordinary  mortals.  And  it  is  this  very 

profuseness  of  his  nature  that  makes  it  so  hard  to 

127 


128  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

write  satis  fyingly,  dispassionately,  and  at  the  same 
time  proportionately,  of  him.  Almost  a  generation 
ago,  Doctor  Thomas  Armitage  said :  “Mr.  Beecher 
will  be  better  understood  in  coming  generations  than 
in  this,  for  now,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  universality 
of  his  work  hides  his  universal  success.” 

i 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  both  Lyman  Beecher,  the 
father,  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  son,  were 
bereft  of  their  mothers  in  infancy.  The  elder 
Beecher’s  mother — a  woman  “of  a  joyous,  spark¬ 
ling,  hopeful  temperament” — died  of  consumption 
two  days  after  his  birth.  Lyman  was  a  seven- 
months’  child,  and  when  the  woman  attending  his 
mother  saw  what  a  puny  creature  he  was,  little  effort 
was  made  to  keep  the  future  theologian  alive;  in¬ 
deed,  he  was  actually  bundled  up  and  put  aside.  At 
last  a  woman,  urged  by  the  curiosity  innate  in  her 
kind,  peeped  in  to  see  if  the  infant  were  still  breath¬ 
ing.  Discovering  signs  of  life,  she  compassionately 
remarked:  “It’s  a  pity  he  hadn’t  died  with  his 
mother.”  Fortunately,  the  verdict  of  history  is 
against  her!  Thinking  of  those  far-off,  mystic  be¬ 
ginnings,  Lyman  Beecher  said :  “So  you  see  it  was 
but  by  a  hair’s-breadth  that  I  got  a  foothold  in  this 
world.”  Yet  these  hair’s-breadth  affairs  are  trans¬ 
actions  of  no  small  moment,  considering  that  God 
hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing.  Not  once  nor  twice 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  129 

in  this  fair  world’s  story,  has  the  hair’s-breadth 
cause  paled  down  to  the  vanishing  point  only  to  un¬ 
cover  the  clear-shining  purposes  of  destiny.  This 
seems  to  be  emphatically  true  of  the  Beechers;  for, 
if  the  Something  behind  the  best-laid  schemes  of 
mice  and  men  and  fate,  had  not  been  silently  but  tre¬ 
mendously  active  in  caring  for  that  New  England 
Moses,  tucked  in  his  ark  of  flannels  and  set  adrift 
on  the  Nile  of  being,  all  history  could  not  have  ral¬ 
lied  to  the  speculative  question  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher :  “Father,  if  you  had  not  been ,  where  would 
I  be?”  And  echo  answers:  “Where?” 

Happily,  however,  there  is  no  need  of  wasting 
time  over  such  a  conundrum.  Breaking  out  of  his 
infant  flannels,  Lyman  Beecher  went  in  due  time 
to  his  Uncle  Lot  Benton’s  farm  in  North  Guilford. 
Intending  to  make  a  farmer  of  young  Beecher,  Mr. 
Benton  introduced  him  to  a  plow  drawn  by  oxen 
never  designed  to  solve  the  problem  of  either  per¬ 
petual  or  rapid  motion.  Plowing  fifteen  acres  three 
times  over  in  one  summer  tended  to  foment  re¬ 
bellion  in  the  coming  reformer’s  soul.  He  did  not 
feign  madness  as  did  Ulysses  while  plowing  his  cele¬ 
brated  semi-cloven-hoof  team;  but  his  uncle  and 
father  were  so  impressed  by  his  dissatisfaction  and 
restlessness,  that  they  decided  to  send  him  to  school 
in  preparation  for  Yale  College.  More  than  once  the 
great  Lyman  Beecher  said:  “Oxen  sent  me  to  col- 


130  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

lege.”  What  an  excellent  sacrifice  they  made  upon 
the  altars  of  theology,  and  what  a  gracious  ministry 
they  accomplished  for  their  day  and  generation! 

Like  his  father,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  also 
left  motherless  in  early  childhood,  being  but  three 
years  old  when  his  mother  died.  And  while  he  was 
nobly  fathered,  he  was  magnificently,  gloriously 
mothered.  Notwithstanding  the  strong  traits  of 
their  sires,  one  ventures  nothing  in  the  assertion  that 
both  Phillips  Brooks  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
owed  their  largest  and  most  dynamic  qualities  to  the 
mothers  that  labored  them  into  life.  In  Beecher’s 
mother,  Roxana  Foote,  there  was  a  beautiful  union 
of  those  intellectual  and  spiritual  powers  which  fitted 
her  to  mother  more  genius  than  is  usually  allotted  to 
a  single  woman;  and  when  her  gifts  were  married 
to  those  of  Lyman  Beecher,  it  is  not  strange  that 
their  children  should  have  such  extraordinary  en¬ 
dowments  as  to  cause  Boston  to  make  a  new  classi¬ 
fication  of  the  human  race,  viz.,  “The  good,  the  bad, 
and  the  Beechers.”  More  than  a  half  a  century  ago  a 
college  literary  society  debated  the  question :  “Which 
is  father  of  the  most  brains,  old  Mr.  Burleigh  or  old 
Dr.  Beecher?”  Old  Doctor  Beecher  won  the  day,  of 
course. 

Of  his  mother,  Beecher  said:  “There  are  few 
women  born  into  this  world  that  are  her  equals.  She 
was  a  woman  of  extraordinary  graces  and  gifts;  a 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  131 

woman  not  demonstrative,  with  a  profound  philo¬ 
sophical  nature,  of  a  wonderful  depth  of  affection, 
and  with  a  serenity  that  was  simply  charming.  From 
her  I  received  my  love  of  the  beautiful,  my  poetic 
temperament ;  from  her  also  I  received  simplicity  and 
childlike  faith  in  God.  Do  you  know  why  so  often 
I  speak  what  must  seem  to  some  of  you  rhapsody  of 
woman?  It  is  because  I  had  a  mother,  and  if  I  were 
to  live  a  thousand  years,  I  could  not  express  what 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  least  I  owe  to  her.  Three 
years  old  was  I  when  singing  she  left  me  and  sung 
on  to  Heaven,  where  she  sings  evermore.  I  have 
only  such  a  remembrance  of  her  as  you  have  of  the 
clouds  of  ten  years  ago — faint,  evanescent;  and  yet, 
caught  by  imagination,  and  fed  by  that  which  I  have 
heard  of  her  and  by  what  my  father’s  thought  and 
feeling  of  her  were,  it  has  come  to  be  so  much  to  me 
that  no  devout  Catholic  ever  saw  so  much  in  the 
Virgin  Mary  as  I  have  seen  in  my  mother,  who  has 
been  a  presence  to  me  ever  since  I  can  remember.,, 
Studying  while  she  spun  flax,  with  her  books  tied 
to  the  distaff,  Roxana  Foote  became  well  read  in 
literature  and  history,  was  acquainted  with  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  science,  which  was  just  then  beginning  to 
interest  scholars,  learned  to  write  and  speak  the 
French  language  fluently,  accompanied  her  voice  on 
the  guitar,  used  pencil  and  brush  in  painting  portraits 
upon  ivory,  was  an  adept  in  the  arts  of  the  needle, 


132  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

and  was  so  skillful  in  all  manner  of  handicraft  that 
in  coming  years  “neither  mantua-maker,  tailoress, 
or  milliner  ever  drew  on  the  family  treasury.” 

These,  then,  were  the  parental  strains  from  which 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  sprang — strains  that  wrought 
powerfully  in  producing  this  big,  vital,  capacious  hu¬ 
man.  For  let  it  be  said  at  once  that  one  of  the  out¬ 
standing  characteristics  of  Beecher,  and  one  of  the 
secrets  of  his  many-sided  genius,  was  his  compre¬ 
hensive,  thoroughgoing,  palpitant  human  quality. 
There  was  in  him  a  tug  of  the  cosmic,  a  touch  of  the 
human,  a  tone  of  the  divine.  In  a  letter  written 
when  he  was  seventeen  months  old,  his  mother  has 
left  a  cameo  of  which  his  seventy-five  years  were  a 
continuous  enlargement.  “I  write,”  she  says,  “sit¬ 
ting  upon  my  feet  with  my  paper  on  the  seat  of  a 
chair,  while  Henry  is  hanging  round  my  neck  and 
climbing  on  my  back.”  Hanging  about  the  neck  of 
the  mother-wonders  of  life,  climbing  over  the  backs 
of  the  never-old,  ever-young  mysteries  of  human 
existence — that  is  what  Beecher  did  for  more  than 
three  quarters  of  a  century.  After  their  mother’s 
funeral,  the  Beecher  children  were  told  at  one  time 
that  she  had  been  put  under  the  ground,  at  another 
that  she  had  gone  to  Heaven.  Putting  the  two  things 
together,  Henry  decided  to  dig  through  the  ground 
and  go  to  find  her.  One  morning  he  was  found 
under  a  window  of  the  parsonage,  digging  with  all 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  133 

the  might  his  three  years  could  command.  Asked 
what  he  was  doing,  he  lifted  his  curly,  golden  head 
and  replied :  “Why,  I  am  going  to  Heaven  to  find 
ma!”  And  all  his  life  long  he  was  putting  severed 
things  together- — now  great  thought- facts  which 
seemed,  in  the  minds  of  average  folk,  to  be  entirely 
unrelated;  now  knitting  up  human  and  divine  real¬ 
ities,  showing  their  essential  correlation ;  now  bring¬ 
ing  together  nations  and  sections,  sundered  by  half¬ 
views  of  whole  principles;  now  uniting  individuals, 
blinded  by  prejudice  or  misunderstanding.  A 
binder-up  of  the  needlessly  separated — that  is  what 
this  infant  grave-digger,  smiting  the  tombs  of  life’s 
buried  mysteries  with  childlike  simplicity  and  in¬ 
vasive  faith,  will  give  the  strength  of  his  manhood’s 
years  to  accomplishing. 

Now  his  vast,  inborn  human  sympathies  aid  much 
toward  making  so  large  a  place  in  the  world  for  him. 
Even  as  a  chubby,  bare-footed,  rosy-faced  four-year- 
old,  battling  with  the  alphabet  in  Widow  Kilbourne’s 
Litchfield  school,  he  saw  and  did  things  behind 
Webster’s  spelling-book  which  made  his  tell-tale  face 
a  strong  witness  for  the  prosecution.  Going  in  the 
morning  to  school,  Harriet,  Henry,  and  Charles 
would  string  out  along  the  village  street  like  Brown’s 
cows  coming  home  at  milching  time.  Holding  each 
other  by  the  hand,  morning  by  morning  they  let  fall 
from  their  wondering  lips,  as  a  kind  of  manna  feed- 


134  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

ing  childhood’s  imagination,  this  hair-raising  ques¬ 
tion:  “What  if  a  great  big  dog  should  come  out  at 
us?”  Invariably  Henry  Ward,  with  the  big-bow- 
wowishness  of  a  full-grown  Sancho  Panza,  would 
make  answer:  “I  would  take  an  ax  and  chop  his 
head  off!”  What  a  pity  that  George  Washington’s 
hatchet  was  not  firmly  clutched  in  his  bloodthirsty 
hand ! 

About  this  time  he  wrote  a  letter  which,  if  it  fails 
to  exhibit  the  politeness  of  Chesterfieldian  epistles, 
has  certain  elements  of  originality  in  spelling  which 
might  have  made  its  author  a  forerunner  of  the 
phonetic  method.  A  facsimile  is  preserved  by  his 
biographers,  showing  the  large,  heavily  shaded, 
firmly  printed  letters.  An  effort  is  here  made  to 
reproduce  only  the  spelling  and  composition : 

“Der  Sister 

We  ar  al  wel 
Ma  haz  a  baby 
The  old  sow  haz  six  pigs.” 

Beecher’s  was  nothing  if  not  an  observant  nature, 
and  this  letter  is  proof  positive  that  the  gift  did  not 
wait  for  development  until  late  in  life. 

From  childhood  he  was  soon  going  the  ways  of  a 
healthy  New  England  boyhood.  Nobody  was  par¬ 
ticularly  interested  in  his  future,  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  there  was  nothing  in  his  present  that 
even  hinted  a  distinguished  future.  He  was  awk- 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  135 

ward,  dull,  a  bad  writer,  a  terrible  speller,  deficient 
in  verbal  memory,  with  a  thick  speech,  and  a  bashful 
reticence  bordering  upon  stupidity.  That  he  would 
ever  make  an  orator  was  a  possibility  so  remote  that 
it  did  not  tinge  the  realm  of  future  probabilities  to 
those  about  him.  His  aunt  said:  “When  Henry  is 
sent  to  me  with  a  message,  I  always  have  to  make 
him  say  it  three  times.  The  first  time  I  have  no 
manner  of  an  idea  more  than  if  he  spoke  in  Choctaw ; 
the  second  I  catch  a  word  now  and  then ;  by  the  third 
time  I  begin  to  understand.” 

But  wait!  Many  things  are  going  on  under  the 
sod  these  winter  days  no  eye  can  see.  The  mystery 
of  next  April’s  violets ;  the  splendor  of  wheat-waving 
meadows;  the  green  of  June  valleys  and  mountains; 
the  gold  of  autumn  cornfields — ten  thousand  mystic 
stirrings  and  upward  strivings  and  fragrant  bloom¬ 
ings  are  potential  in  the  frozen  clods  of  January. 
So,  also,  this  stupid  New  England  lad  is  full  of  un¬ 
imagined  wonders,  is  packed  with  undreamed  possi¬ 
bilities,  is  planted  with  seeds  of  vision,  eloquence, 
moral  power  and  spiritual  insight  which  will  one 
day  break  forth  upon  the  world  and  make  it  exclaim : 
“Behold,  what  hath  God  wrought!” 

In  truth,  two  boys  were  already  imprisoned  within 
the  stout,  stocky  body  of  this  youth.  Over  against 
the  mischievous,  frolicsome,  prank-playing,  fun-lov¬ 
ing,  book-dull  boy  stands  a  youth  of  exquisite 


136  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

delicacy,  velvet  tenderness,  and  winsome  shyness. 
Even  now  he  is  watching  things  grow  out  in  the 
wonder-teeming  world.  He  knows  where  the  robin’s 
nest  is ;  he  knows  how  the  crow  flies ;  he  knows  how 
the  squirrel  barks ;  he  knows  where  the  rabbit’s  hole 
is ;  he  knows  where  the  sweet  flag  is ;  he  knows  where 
the  sassafras,  the  hickory,  and  the  chestnut  trees 
are ;  he  knows  how  the  wind  sings  through  the  trees, 
blowing  the  poplars  white;  he  knows  how  the  sky 
wooes  the  stream,  and  how  the  stream  flirts  back 
with  its  sky-lover  in  wind-blown  kisses;  he  knows 
how  the  moon  climbs  to  its  silver  tower  above  the 
Litchfield  hills  and  valleys,  spreading  a  mantle  of 
old  gold  across  their  enchanted  loveliness ;  he  knows 
how,  when  the  green  has  gone,  the  invisible  assassin 
named  Autumn  steals  through  the  domes  of  the  trees 
and  stains  their  leaves  with  the  innocent  blood  of 
Summer.  Ah !  he  knows  a  number  of  things  not  set 
down  in  his  blue-back  spelling  book;  and  he  is 
working  out  several  problems  for  which  there  are  no 
answers  in  his  yellow-back  arithmetic. 

A  lover  of  Nature,  he  was  not  only  passionately 
fond  of,  but  a  devoted  student  of  human  nature  in 
its  manifold  expressions.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was 
so  natively,  so  grandly  human  in  the  noblest  sense, 
that  he  was  peculiarly  qualified  to  interpret  the  divine 
to  men.  The  seen  and  the  unseen  were  wondrously 
intersphered  in  him.  Uniting  so  perfectly  in  himself 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  137 

the  two  foci  of  spiritual  reality — the  human  and  the 
divine — he  spoke  with  unique  authority  of  the  things 
revealed  by  Him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake.  He 
fulfilled  Goethe’s  dictum  that,  if  one  would  enter 
into  the  infinite,  he  must  first  of  all  go  out  to  all 
points  of  the  finite.  From  his  childhood  Beecher 
displayed  an  inclusive  humanness  that  made  him  a 
veritable  magnet,  drawing  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  people  within  the  zone  of  his  personality.  Did  the 
pugnacious  Boston  Salem-Streeters  need  a  captain 
to  lead  them  against  their  doughty  Prince-Street 
enemies?  Lyman  Beecher’s  eighth  child  is  their 
chosen  champion.  Did  the  Freshmen  class  of  Am¬ 
herst  College  need  a  debater  to  defend  them  from 
the  brow-beating  Sophomores?  Young  Beecher, 
hearty,  whole-souled,  humorous,  takes  up  the  task. 
Did  Cincinnati  call  for  volunteer  policemen  in  1836, 
when  the  pro-slavery  riots  broke  out?  This  Lane 
Seminary  theologue  turns  policeman  and  patrols  the 
streets  night  after  night.  Did  the  little  church  at 
Lawrenceburg  need  a  sexton  as  well  as  a  pastor,  and 
did  the  pastor  have  a  young  wife  and  no  parsonage? 
Very  well.  The  pastor  becomes  sexton,  and  an 
abandoned  loft  over  a  stable  becomes  a  home  for 
the  pastor-sexton  and  his  young  bride.  Did  the 
royal  guild  of  beggars  want  help?  One,  three  thou¬ 
sand  dollars  to  lift  the  mortgage  from  his  farm;  a 
second — a  distressed  clergyman — wanted  only  a 


138  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

thousand,  offering  as  security  the  assurance  that  the 
Lord  would  repay  it ;  a  third,  a  school  girl,  requested 
a  composition ;  a  fourth,  a  seminary  student,  wished 
Beecher  to  write  him  a  lecture  he  might  deliver  and 
from  the  proceeds  thereof  obtain  a  ministerial  educa¬ 
tion  ;  a  fifth  journeyed  from  a  distant  state,  making 
the  modest  request  that  he  adopt  and  educate  her, 
and  having  spent  all  her  means  coming  to  see  him, 
he  had  to  buy  her  a  ticket  back  home.  And  so  the 
story  goes.  It  is  laughable,  ridiculous,  almost  in¬ 
conceivable. 

Yet  is  it  not  an  undisguised  tribute  to  the  brother- 
ing,  opulently  human  quality  in  this  man?  Every¬ 
body — even  his  inveterate  enemies — felt  a  kind  of 
special  ownership  in  him.  He  heard  the  newsboy’s 
tale  of  sorrow;  he  listened  to  the  merchant  prince’s 
unrequited  yearnings;  he  turned  the  prodigal’s  back 
upon  the  far  country  and  set  him  facing  about  home¬ 
ward;  he  talked  the  look  of  despair  from  the  Magda¬ 
lene’s  shrunken  cheek  and  lo !  the  lilies  of  virtue 
bloomed  again;  little  children  brought  him  flowers, 
wicked  men  brought  him  thorns,  but  to  each  and  to 
all — the  outcast,  the  forsaken,  the  forgotten,  the 
scholar,  the  statesman,  the  teacher — he  was  so  preg¬ 
nantly,  so  radiantly  human  that  an  other-world 
melody  wound  through  his  speech,  while  the  gentle¬ 
ness  of  his  great  soul  warmed  through  his  clasp. 
One  afternoon  I  counted  thirty-seven  sparrows  hop- 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  139 

ping  about  on  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  Ward’s  statue 
of  Mr.  Beecher  in  City  Hall  Square.  Just  then  a 
dog  came  running  by,  the  little  creatures  were  fright¬ 
ened  and  hastily  flew  away.  Looking  up  to  see  what 
had  become  of  them,  I  found  that  all  but  three  had 
taken  refuge  on  the  head,  shoulders,  arms,  and  feet 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher’s  likeness  in  bronze.  It  is 
beautifully  symbolical  of  the  many  frightened  things 
— causes,  institutions,  and  individuals — that  sought 
and  found  refuge  in  the  life  of  this  most  human- 
hearted  man,  who  was  at  once  passionately  loved  and 
desperately  hated. 


11 

In  1863  Beecher  wrote  to  Mrs.  Stowe:  “The  will 
of  the  Republic  is  to  be  the  law  of  the  world.”  He 
believed  this  with  all  his  soul;  indeed,  it  is  the  key-% 
note  of  as  profound  a  patriotism  as  ever  indwelt  a 
great  nature.  Whether  one  agrees  with  his  par¬ 
ticular  viewpoint  or  not,  one  is  compelled  to  admire 
the  depth  and  steadfastness  of  his  conviction,  burn¬ 
ing  with  the  rage  and  fury  of  an  internal  fire,  just  as 
fair-minded  men  are  compelled  to  acknowledge  the 
patriotic  grandeur  that  shouldered  Robert  E.  Lee  to 
those  august  summits,  whither  the  poisoned  darts  of 
obloquy  can  never  reach. 

Coming  out  of  the  Brooklyn  City  Hall  one  day 
with  a  friend,  he  pointed  to  Beecher’s  statue  facing 


140  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

us  a  few  yards  away,  and  said:  “Look  at  him!  He 
stands  there  as  immovable  as  the  foundations  of  the 
earth !”  Now,  in  a  fresh  and  somewhat  compre¬ 
hensive  survey  of  Mr.  Beecher’s  life,  nothing  has 
impressed  me  more  profoundly  than  the  absolute 
independence,  the  Gibraltar-like  firmness  which  char¬ 
acterized  his  patriotic  stand  and  activities  preceding 
and  following  the  Civil  War.  For  in  1850  the  man 
who  dared  lift  his  voice,  even  in  the  heart  of  the 
North  itself,  in  favor  of  legislation  against  slavery, 
generally  met  with  a  reception  as  cold  as  if  it  had 
been  conceived  in  an  iceberg  and  tendered  by  residents 
of  the  polar  regions.  There  were  many  reasons 
which  fostered  such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  North¬ 
erners.  Well-grounded  fears  as  to  the  possible  out¬ 
come  of  an  open  rupture  between  the  two  sections; 
the  depth  and  strength  of  ties  uniting  the  descendants 
of  the  New  World  pioneers  of  Jamestown  and  Ply¬ 
mouth  ;  the  incapacity  of  the  average  man  to  appre¬ 
ciate  a  new  epoch  in  history,  even  after  it  has 
dawned,  and  the  world-old  timidity  born  of  a  deep- 
seated  conservatism;  the  disturbance  of  commercial 
values  and  the  financial  disasters  involved  in  war — 
these,  and  other  equally  influential  considerations, 
did  not  make  a  congenial  atmosphere  for  one  who 
opposed  slavery  as  ardently  as  the  most  conscientious 
slaveholder  upheld  it.  And  yet,  while  the  vast  ma¬ 
jority  of  his  Northern  brethren  hedged  and  dodged, 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  141 

Beecher  dared  speak  out  his  inmost  convictions.  Not 
infrequently  he  spoke  when  his  life  was  openly 
threatened.  At  Elizabeth  City,  New  Jersey,  the 
Copperheads  declared  they  would  kill  him  rather 
than  permit  him  to  speak.  Amid  indescribable  up¬ 
roar,  Mr.  Beecher  entered  the  hall,  advanced  to  the 
platform,  and  said:  “Gentlemen,  I  have  been  in¬ 
formed  that  if  I  attempt  to  speak  here  tonight  I  am 
to  be  killed.  Well,  I  am  going  to  speak,  and  there¬ 
fore  I  must  die.  But  before  you  kill  me,  there  is  one 
request  I  have  to  make.  All  of  you  who  are  going  to 
stain  your  hands  in  my  blood  just  come  up  here  and 
shake  hands  with  me  before  you  commit  the  crime, 
for  when  I  die  I  shall  go  to  Heaven,  and  therefore 
I  shall  never  see  any  of  you  again.”  He  spoke  for 
two  hours,  talking  the  murder  out  of  the  hearts  of 
desperate  men. 

Convinced  of  its  own  rights  and  the  justness  of  its 
cause,  the  South  had  taken  a  position  from  which  it 
could  not  be  easily  dislodged ;  its  course  was  fixedly 
determined,  and  nothing  could  swerve  it  from  the 
purpose  animating  its  very  being.  On  the  contrary, 
there  was  no  such  definite  and  uncompromising  pro¬ 
gram  at  the  North.  Henry  Clay’s  Omnibus  Bill, 
introduced  in  1850,  including  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Laws,  was  as  heartily  approved  in  many  sections 
of  the  North  as  in  the  South;  and  the  same  was  true 
of  Daniel  Webster’s  speech  on  the  7th  of  March, 


142  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

1850.  But  notwithstanding  such  mighties  as  Clay 
and  Webster,  Beecher  wrote  his  famous  paper  on 
“Shall  We  Compromise?”  for  the  Independent  of 
February  21,  1850.  As  John  C.  Calhoun  lay  upon 
his  sick  bed,  the  article  was  read  to  him  by  his  clerk. 
Raising  himself  up,  the  great  statesman  said :  “Read 
that  article  again.”  When  it  was  read  again,  he  re¬ 
marked  :  “The  man  who  says  that  is  right.  There  is 
no  alternative.  It  is  liberty  or  slavery.”  Even  ten 
years  later,  and  three  days  after  Mr.  Lincoln’s  elec¬ 
tion,  the  New  York  Tribune ,  the  acknowledged  or¬ 
gan  of  the  Republican  party,  said:  “If  the  cotton 
states  decide  that  they  can  do  better  out  of  the  Union 
than  in  it,  we  insist  on  letting  them  go  in  peace.  .  .  . 
We  hope  never  to  live  in  a  Republic  whereof  one  sec¬ 
tion  is  pinned  to  the  residue  by  bayonets.” 

This,  then,  was  the  situation  Beecher  faced  in  his 
own  section  of  the  Republic.  Notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  agitators  like  John  Brown  and  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  there  were  vast  areas  of  pro-slavery 
soil  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon’s  line.  And  of  all 
the  men  who  broke  up  this  fallow  ground,  sowing 
it  with  the  seed  of  sentiment  for  the  Union  cause, 
not  one  takes  precedence  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
His  untiring  physical  energy;  his  comprehensive 
grasp  of  principles;  his  inexhaustible  resources  of 
mind  and  soul;  his  fearless  stand  for  the  right  as 
he  saw  it;  his  marvelous  eloquence,  abounding  with 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  143 

argument,  invective,  zeal,  and  persuasion,  stamp  him 
as  one  of  the  great  patriots  of  history. 

But  it  still  remains  to  be  said  that  the  star  of 
Beecher’s  patriotism  climbed  highest  and  shone 
brightest  while  he  was  sojourning  in  a  foreign  land. 
England’s  open  and  enthusiastic  espousal  of  the 
cause  of  the  Confederacy  is  well  known.  What 
might  have  been  the  course  of  history  had  the  old 
mother  taken  up  arms  in  favor  of  the  southernmost 
of  her  warring  children  ?  With  this  question  belongs 
another:  What,  in  all  human  probability,  kept  Eng¬ 
land  from  turning  her  deep  sympathy  into  practical 
help  of  the  South?  Henry  Ward  Beecher  is  the 
answer.  Going  to  Europe  for  a  much-needed  rest  in 
1863,  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church  rendered  im¬ 
measurable  service  to  the  Union  cause.  He  did  not 
go,  as  is  sometimes  averred,  at  the  behest  of  either 
President  or  Cabinet,  or  any  other  Government  offi¬ 
cial.  Worn  with  the  unremitting  toil  of  many  years, 
his  Church  simply  sent  him  away  to  rest.  He  went 
purely  as  a  private  citizen;  and  upon  arriving  in 
England  in  July,  1863,  he  refused  invitations  to 
speak  in  Manchester  and  Liverpool,  going  on  to  the 
Continent.  Returning  to  England  the  following 
September,  he  consented  to  speak  in  Free  Trade  Hall, 
Manchester,  on  October  9th.  Met  at  the  station  by 
two  Northern  sympathizers,  they  said  to  him:  “Of 
course  you  know  there  is  a  great  deal  of  excitement 


144  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

here.”  Great  placards,  denouncing  Beecher  and  the 
North,  and  printed  in  anarchic  red,  had  been  sown 
broadcast.  Beecher  said:  “Well,  are  you  going  to 
back  down?”  “No,”  they  replied,  “but  we  didn’t 
know  how  you  would  feel.”  “Well,”  he  answered, 
“you  will  find  out  how  I  feel.  I’m  going  to  be  heard. 
I  won’t  leave  England  until  I  have  been  heard.” 

And  he  was  heard — heard  in  Manchester,  heard 
in  Glasgow,  heard  in  Edinburgh,  heard  in  Liverpool, 
heard  in  London,  heard  clear  around  the  world, 
heard  to  all  coming  generations.  Measured  by  the 
tremendous  odds  against  him  and  the  venomous 
hatred  manifested,  by  the  opposition  gradually  over¬ 
come  and  the  victory  ultimately  won,  what  other 
speeches,  or  what  other  eloquence,  can  stand  along¬ 
side  Henry  Ward  Beecher’s  patriotic  addresses  in 
England  ?  They  are  verily  without  a  parallel.  Doc¬ 
tor  William  M.  Taylor — and  Scotchmen  are  not 
given  to  exaggeration — gave  it  as  his  deliberate  and 
well-reasoned  conviction  that  such  eloquence  as 
Beecher’s  has  not  been  in  the  world  since  Demos¬ 
thenes.  Turn  again  to  the  Oration  on  the  Crown,  and 
consider  that  the  old  Greek  was  never  really  tried 
out  as  was  this  nineteenth  century  American  by  those 
howling,  hissing,  jeering  English  mobs;  consider, 
furthermore,  that  in  his  English  speeches  every  stop 
in  the  organ  of  eloquence  was  pulled  out  at  some 
time  or  other,  ranging  all  the  way  from  pathos,  hu- 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  145 

mor,  argument,  sarcasm  and  defiance  up  to  the  sub- 
limest  expression  of  humanitarian  principles,  loftiest 
patriotism  and  religious  zeal;  and  consider,  finally, 
that  measured  by  actual  results,  history  holds  no 
such  victory  won  by  the  human  tongue  as  was  ac¬ 
corded  to  Mr.  Beecher  in  England  and  Scotland. 
Joseph  Parker  says  of  the  Manchester  speech: 
“When  Mr.  Beecher  appeared  the  scene  baffled  de¬ 
scription  ;  the  cheering,  stamping,  clapping,  shouting, 
and  partial  groaning,  made  the  hall  shake  again. 
Mr.  Beecher  rose  to  speak,  but  the  audience  must 
needs  cheer;  once  more  he  got  to  ‘Mr.  Chairman,’ 
and  once  more  the  cheers  rang  out  in  wild  and  all  but 
unanimous  harmony.  Mr.  Beecher  quickly  caught 
the  groans  and  hisses  of  a  clique  at  the  far  end  of 
the  hall,  and  intuitively  seizing  the  temper  of  his 
audience  he  laid  aside  his  elaborate  manuscript  and 
went  right  at  his  work.  For  something  like  two 
hours  he  went  on,  making  his  triumphant  but  far 
from  interrupted  way  through  facts,  statistics, 
policies,  and  arguments,  without  so  much  as  refer¬ 
ring  to  a  memorandum.  As  an  effort  of  memory, 
as  an  effort  of  the  voice,  and  as  a  miracle  of  wisdom 
and  good-nature,  I  never  heard  the  equal  of  that 
massive  and  overwhelming  oration.  From  that  mo¬ 
ment  we  knew  the  greatness  of  the  cause,  and  we 
felt  that  its  advocacy  was  in  the  strongest  possible 
hands.  There  was  life  in  every  tone,  so  much  so 


146  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

indeed  that  the  whole  effort  seemed  to  be  part  of  the 
very  battle  which  it  described.  Truly,  it  was  no  ama¬ 
teur  eloquence;  it  was  no  attempt  at  scene-painting; 
it  was  a  fight,  a  heroic  onslaught,  and,  from  my 
point  of  view,  a  victorious  assault  at  arms.” 

In  short,  it  was  like  kissing  the  lips  of  a  blazing 
cannon;  but  he  spiked  the  belching,  flaming  thing 
with  his  trumpet-toned  speech.  He  found  the  throne 
against  him;  he  found  even  that  man  who,  in  the 
estimation  of  many,  is  greater  than  any  throne — 
William  Ewart  Gladstone — against  him.  But  he 
triumphed  over  both,  not  only  taming  the  fury  of 
the  British  Lion,  but  actually  training  it  to  play  the 
part  of  friend  rather  than  enemy  to  his  cause.  No 
wonder  Gladstone  said  of  Beecher,  the  patriot :  “To 
his  undying  fame  the  world  and  his  memory  stand 
in  no  need  of  witnesses.” 


hi 

“All  the  bells  that  God  has  put  in  my  belfry  shall 
ring !”  One  need  hardly  be  told  that  the  words  are 
Beecher’s  own.  But  the  amazing  thing,  in  going 
about  his  belfry,  is  the  number  and  tone-quality  of 
the  bells  hanging  therein.  Charles  Haddon  Spur¬ 
geon  was  so  impressed  with  this  fact  that  he  char¬ 
acterized  Beecher  as  “the  most  myriad-minded  man 
since  Shakespeare.”  For  one,  I  used  to  regard  the 
statement  as  a  bit  of  Spurgeonian  exaggeration ;  but 


Henry  W ard  Beecher  147 

a  new  appraisal  of  Beecher’s  mind  has  made  me  less 
skeptical,  if  it  has  not  prepared  me  to  altogether 
accept  the  English  preacher’s  statement  in  its  bald 
literalness.  So  varied  were  his  gifts,  and  so  deeply 
did  they  impress  themselves  upon  men,  that  both 
critics  and  admirers  have  said  that  Beecher  would 
have  made  a  great  author,  a  great  politician,  a  great 
editor,  a  great  lawyer,  a  great  farmer,  a  great  actor, 
a  great  anything — almost !  He  was  an  acknowledged 
expert  in  his  judgment  of  horses,  arboriculture,  hor¬ 
ticulture,  precious  stones,  oriental  rugs,  and  various 
other  things.  That  he  would  have  been  great  in  all, 
or  many  of  the  departments  mentioned,  is  largely  a 
matter  of  speculation,  while  sober  students  deny  any 
such  probability.  But  that  he  was  a  great — a  su¬ 
premely  great — Christian  preacher,  is  all  but  uni¬ 
versally  admitted. 

What,  then,  were  the  hidings  of  his  power?  In 
general,  they  are  two  :  first,  the  personality  of  the 
man;  and,  second,  preaching  upon  great  themes  in 
a  great  way. 

Now,  when  an  effort  is  made  to  define,  to  weigh, 
to  measure  personality,  there  is  much  straining  after 
wind  without  unveiling  the  reality  itself.  Evidences 
we  know,  manifestations  we  see,  but  what  is  the 
thing?  Modern  chemistry  makes  heavy  draughts 
upon  the  credulity  of  ordinary  men  in  teaching  that 
an  ounce  of  matter  contains  enough  of  radiant  energy 


148  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

to  lift  ten  thousand  tons  one  mile.  But  the  lifting 
power  of  a  radiant  personality  is  more  wonderful 
still;  its  might,  its  spell,  its  riddle  savors  of  that 
which  lies  behind  all  matter,  whether  done  into  sys¬ 
tems,  galaxies,  and  stars,  or  atoms,  electrons,  and 
ions.  John  says  that  one  of  the  seven  angels  com¬ 
missioned  to  show  him  the  splendors  of  the  Holy 
City  had  for  a  measure  a  golden  reed ;  but  the  walls 
and  gates,  length  and  breadth  of  the  holy  city  named 
a  great  human  personality,  with  its  fathomless  river 
of  life  flowing  through  the  midst  of  its  streets  of 
genius,  refuses  to  yield  its  real  dimensions  to  any 
reed,  however  golden.  Astronomers  say  that  that 
undiscovered  planet  beyond  Neptune  and  Jupiter 
would  have  a  year  equal  to  a  thousand  of  our  earth- 
years,  because  it  would  require  a  thousand  years  to 
make  its  revolution  round  the  sun.  Thus  with  all  its 
glow  and  near-at-hand  brilliance,  a  vast  human  per¬ 
son  remains  a  kind  of  undiscovered  planet  trembling 
on  the  confines  of  being.  Who  shall  measure  Plato, 
with  the  dim  memories  of  eternity  singing  in  his 

t 

soul  ?  Who  shall  measure  Da  Vinci,  challenging  the 
world  to  contest  his  superiority  in  painting,  drawing, 
or  chiseling?  Who  shall  measure  Shakespeare,  the 
thousand-souled,  or  Goethe,  the  thousand-eyed  ? 
Who  shall  measure  Mozart,  hearing  sounds  it  is  not 
lawful  to  utter,  and  yet  playing  symphonies  that  lift 
the  gates  of  melody  off  their  hinges  and  let  the  floods 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  149 

of  music  pour  down  all  sides  of  the  world?  Truly, 
more  than  a  golden  reed  is  required  for  taking  the 
dimensions  of  these  mystic,  metropolitan  cities  of 
Man-Soul.  We  can  only  say,  as  of  John’s  city,  that 
the  glory  of  God  is  in  them,  and  their  light  is  like 
unto  a  stone  most  precious,  as  it  were  a  jasper  stone, 
clear  as  crystal,  and  measureless  as  clear.  One  might 
as  well  attempt  to  photograph  the  quiver  of  last 
May’s  young  grasses;  or  to  preserve  the  fragrance 
of  roses  dead  Junes  ago;  or  to  analyze  the  song  of  a 
mocking  bird  fluting  in  the  sunset  from  the  topmost 
twig  of  a  Tennessee  apple  tree,  as  to  measure  the 
cryptic,  indefinable,  esoteric  quality  in  lofty  human 
personality. 

But  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  possessed  this 
nameless  charm,  this  subtle  something  that  emanates 
from  distinguished  souls,  his  worst  enemies  could 
not  deny.  Many  went  to  scoff,  and  not  infrequently 
to  hiss  and  howl,  who  came  away  suggesting  the 
ancient  inquiry:  “Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets?” 
To  take  a  concrete  illustration,  an  ex-Confederate 
soldier  went  with  Rev.  Frank  Russell  to  hear  Mr. 
Beecher  in  Plymouth  Church  on  a  May  Sunday 
evening  in  1865.  “Yes,”  said  he,  “I  am  going  to 
hear  Beecher,  for  I  never  saw  him.  It  would  do 
me  good  to  take  a  rifle  along  and  just  send  a  bullet 
through  him  as  he  stands  in  the  pulpit  pretending  to 
preach  the  Gospel.  If  some  one  had  done  it  years 


150  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

ago,  the  country  would  have  been  a  heap  better  off, 
but  now  that  his  influence  is  all  gone,  I  don’t  know 
but  that  he  may  as  well  live.”  Seated  at  last  in  the 
church,  the  speaker  railed  at  the  crowd  packing  the 
building,  and  even  the  building  itself ;  railed  at  the 
organ,  the  style  of  the  pulpit,  and  its  furniture; 
railed  even  at  the  flowers  that  adorned  it.  Though 
the  wonderful  singing  failed  to  conquer,  the  prayer 
rather  subdued  the  rebellious  auditor.  Mr.  Beecher 
prayed  for  those  who  carried  bitterness  in  their 
hearts;  for  those  who  had  been  disappointed,  and 
hurt,  and  defeated.  The  prayer  over,  a  new  look 
was  on  the  man’s  face;  but  when  the  sermon  was 
over,  a  new  man  walked  out  of  the  pew.  Arm  in 
arm,  the  two  friends  walked  in  silence  to  the  ferry. 
The  erstwhile  recalcitrant  was  the  first  to  speak.  ‘‘I 
swear,”  said  he,  “I  believe  I  have  been  most  egre- 
giously  mistaken  about  that  man.”  “No  proposition 
was  ever  clearer  to  me,”  replied  the  other.  “It  don’t 
seem  put  on,”  continued  the  first;  “he  seems  to  feel, 
and  that  deeply,  everything  he  says.”  The  next  Sun¬ 
day  he  requested  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Beecher, 
heard  him  at  every  prayer  meeting  and  preaching 
service  during  his  stay  in  New  York,  and  ever  after¬ 
ward,  though  two  thousand  miles  away,  he  would 
not  permit  an  unsavory  word  against  the  preacher 
whose  “influence  was  all  gone.”  But  this  is  only 
typical  of  many  cases.  Families  moving  to  New 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  151 

York  and  Brooklyn  from  afar,  and  acquainted  with 
Beecher  only  through  slanderous  newspaper  reports, 
first  went  to  Plymouth  Church  as  to  a  menagerie. 
In  due  time,  however,  the  expulsive  power  of  his 
personal  charm  claimed  them  as  enthusiastic  friends. 
Then  it  was  that  his  old  neighbors  humorously 
shrugged  their  shoulders,  heaved  an  awful  sigh,  and 
exclaimed :  “What?  They,  too,  bewitched?  What  a 
fearful  influence  that  man  does  exert!” 

Like  all  men  of  the  first  order,  Beecher  the  man 
was  ever  greater  than  his  works.  There  are  gifted 
men  who  are  fully  able  to  express  themselves  in  their 
words  and  deeds ;  we  somehow  feel  that  their  effects 
are  easily  as  great  as  their  causes ;  they  lack  the  leo¬ 
nine  strength  of  reserve  power;  they  do  not  say: 
“What  we  have  revealed  to  you  is  only  a  hint  of 
the  untapped  energies  lying  behind.”  But  this  is 
what  Dantes  and  Coleridges  and  Beechers  always 
say :  “You  think  our  Infernos  and  Conversations  and 
Sermons  are  grand;  but  O,  what  New  Paradisos  yet 
unsung,  what  Ancient  Mariners  yet  unborn,  what 
Sermons  yet  undelivered!”  Now,  Beecher  pos¬ 
sessed  this  unexplored,  unexpressed  self  in  a  remark¬ 
able  degree.  Beecher  never  preached  a  sermon  that 
was  equal  to  Beecher.  There  was  in  him  what  David 
Swing  characterized  as  an  “inborn,  vast  genius”; 
what  George  William  Curtis  called  “his  exuberant 
vitality”;  what  John  G.  Whittier  recognized  as 


152  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

“warm,  tender,  and  irresistibly  attractive”  ;  what  At- 
ticus  G.  Haygood  termed  “so  creative  a  mind  and 
fascinating  power”;  what  Haweis  named  a  com¬ 
pound  of  Spurgeon,  Bright,  Maurice,  and  Robert¬ 
son;  what  Richard  Salter  Storrs  defined  as  “his 
power  so  constant  and  so  vast,  only  because  the 
sources  of  it  were  so  manifold  and  so  deep.”  In 
other  words,  Beecher  was  just  Beecher.  He  was  a 
kind  of  human  cube — the  length  and  the  breadth 
and  the  height  of  him  are  equal.  Guthrie  was  called 
the  silver-tongued  and  Chrysostom  the  golden¬ 
mouthed.  Now,  Beecher’s  tongue  was  tipped  with 
silver  and  his  mouth  was  filled  with  gold;  but  the 
striking  power  of  Beecher  the  organism  is  partly 
seen  in  this,  as  pointed  out  by  a  discriminating  stu¬ 
dent  :  “He  was  never  spoken  of  by  his  acquaintances 
as  either  a  silver  or  a  golden-tongued  orator.  It  is 
not  to  disparage  Guthrie  or  Chrysostom  that  each 
bears  one  of  these  appellations;  but  it  is  to  indicate 
the  wholeness  and  integral  character  of  Mr.  Beecher 
that  his  eloquence  must  be  spoken  of  as  an  effluence 
of  his  entire  nature  rather  than  the  superb  activity 
of  some  particular  power”  This  phase  of  his  char¬ 
acter  bulks  so  large,  and  illustrates  so  emphatically 
one  of  his  many  sources  of  power,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  leave  it  without  further  development.  But  a  few 
words  more  on  this  point  from  one  of  his  letters  must 
be  sufficient:  “Only  a  few  days  more  and  we  shall 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  153 

be  on  our  way  to  Peekskill,  where  I  will  roll  on  the 
grass,  frolic  with  the  dogs,  rejoice  in  the  flowers,  sit 
under  the  big  pine  tree  and  superintend  laying 
out  the  road,  and  we  will  have  a  good  time  generally. 

But  having  had  it  I  shall  return  to  my  church  ready, 

♦ 

happy  and  eager  to  resume  my  labors,  and  with  a 
heart  all  the  richer  in  love  for  it  and  my  people  for 
these  few  weeks  of  rest.”  Any  man  who  can  tumble 
in  the  grass,  play  with  dogs,  dream  with  flowers, 
nod  under  a  spreading  tree,  boss  the  building  of  a 
new  road,  have  a  good  time  generally,  and  can  at 
the  same  time  draw  this  epigram  from  the  greatest 
English  preacher  of  his  time,  who  is  comparing 
him  with  Mr.  Gladstone :  “When  Mr.  Beecher  con¬ 
cludes  it  is  rather  out  of  deference  to  custom  or  con¬ 
venience  than  because  the  subject  is  exhausted” — 
that  man,  I  say,  has  something — a  vast,  vital,  inner 
opulence — which  lifts  him  to  the  first  rank  of 
supreme  personalities,  nor  is  he  unduly  awkward  in 
such  high  fellowship. 

Still,  a  man  may  have  a  personality  as  unique  as 
Shakespeare  himself,  and  yet  fail  as  a  Christian 
preacher.  A  great  authority  in  such  matters  has 
gone  so  far  as  to  assert  that  a  man  may  even  speak 
with  the  eloquence  of  men  and  of  angels,  have  the 
gift  of  prophecy,  know  all  mysteries  and  all  knowl¬ 
edge,  and  yet,  lacking  love,  he  may  be  but  a  lone,  in¬ 
flated  cipher  in  the  universe — simply  nothing.  Nor 


154  ^  Moneyless  Magnate 

is  it  otherwise  with  Christian  preaching.  Until  a 
personality,  however  great,  is  colored,  saturated, 
soaked  in  the  inmost  essence  of  the  truths  of  God, 
man,  and  the  universe  as  declared  in  Christ,  he  shall 
not  stand  in  the  Congregation  of  the  Evangelists  of 
Eternity.  The  upperworld  facts  and  forces  must 
meet  and  mingle  in  his  own  being,  forming  a  holy 
majesty  of  society  within  his  possessed  and  pos¬ 
sessing  personality,  before  he  is  that  timeless,  un¬ 
earthly,  and  uniquely  distinctive  personage  named  a 
Christian  preacher. 

Here,  then,  we  come  upon  the  second  secret  of 
Beecher’s  power.  His  themes  were  many  and  varied, 
but  his  ruling  ideas  were  splendidly  limited.  Doctor 
Newell  Dwight  Hillis,  who  has  made  a  careful 
analysis  of  Mr.  Beecher’s  seven  hundred  published 
sermons,  collected  out  of  fifty  preaching  years,  and 
embracing  doctrinal,  philosophical,  biographical, 
expositional,  narrative  and  imaginative  themes,  tells 
me  that  Beecher’s  dominant  ideas  are  really  four  in 
number,  viz.,  the  Suffering  Love  of  God,  the  Deity 
of  Christ,  the  Sanctity  of  the  Individual,  and  Man’s 
Immortality.  Moreover,  a  critical  study  of  his  great 
predecessor  has  yielded  Dr.  Hillis  this  further  con¬ 
clusion  :  Every  three  years  Beecher  went  the  round 
of  Christian  truth  and  experience,  treating  the  great 
epochs  of  the  Christian  life  and  covering  the  great 
themes — God,  Christ,  the  Holy  Spirit,  Man,  his  dig- 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  155 

nity,  his  need,  his  ignorance  and  sinfulness,  the 
nature,  number,  and  order  of  the  spiritual  faculties, 
the  method  of  quickening  a  sense  of  sin  in  men,  the 
development  of  love,  the  growth  of  faith,  and  nour¬ 
ishing  the  hope  of  immortal  life. 

Notwithstanding,  therefore,  Beecher’s  variety  of 
subjects  and  his  myriad-minded  treatment  of  them, 
I  think  that  the  contention  that  his  overruling  ideas, 
as  given,  is  in  the  main  just  and  true,  and  will  be 
borne  out  by  a  comprehensive  study  of  his  sermons. 
It  would  be  interesting  and  profitable  to  let  Mr. 
Beecher  speak  upon  his  four  regnant  ideas  for  him¬ 
self  ;  but  at  least  two  things  forbid — the  limitation 
of  space  and  my  utter  inability  to  choose  wisely  from 
such  riches.  I  used  to  visit  a  friend,  a  Maiden  Lane 
jeweler,  for  the  purpose  of  admiring  his  precious 
stones.  As  he  put  out  a  single  tray  of  opals,  I  was 
not  unduly  excited;  but  as  he  went  on  setting  case 
after  case  of  flashing  gems  before  me,  insisting  that 
I  should  drink  in  the  beauty  of  all,  I  was  so  intoxi¬ 
cated  by  their  luster  as  to  become  esthetically  dizzy. 
Instead  of  saying,  “This  particular  amethyst,  or 
pearl,  or  opal,  or  diamond  is  beautiful,”  I  usually 
wound  up  with  the  prosaic  statement :  “It  is  time  to 
go  home.”  So,  it  is  not  poverty  but  wealth — bound¬ 
less,  amazing,  overwhelming  riches — that  forbids 
our  pulpit  prince  speaking  for  himself  in  this  con¬ 
nection.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  men  in  Christian 


156  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

history  who  have  visioned  a  holy,  loving,  suffering, 
sympathetic  God;  who  have  understood  and  inter¬ 
preted  the  nature  and  mind  of  Christ ;  who  have  pro¬ 
claimed  the  sanctity  of  the  individual ;  who  have  set 
ringing  the  sweet  chimes  of  immortal  hope  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  equal  to  that  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
are  considerably  less  than  the  number  of  centuries 
which  have  come  and  gone  since  the  angels  sang 
above  the  Cradle  in  Bethlehem.  Of  Christ  he  said: 
“I  put  my  soul  into  His  care,  even  as  when  I  was 
born,  my  father  put  me  into  the  arms  of  my  mother. 
He  is  the  only  God  I  know.” 


VIII 


Phillips  Brooks 

IN  searching  out  the  foundations  of  the  greatness 
of  Phillips  Brooks,  we  must  reckon  with  his 
ancestry.  For  he  nobly  fulfilled  the  saying  of 
Holmes,  that  a  man,  in  order  to  be  great,  must  select 
his  parents  two  and  a  half  centuries  before  his  birth. 
On  the  Phillips  side,  we  can  trace  Brooks’  ancestry 
back  for  nine  generations.  And  they  are  a  great 
people.  We  find  in  them  a  fine  blending  of  thrift, 
uprightness,  intellectualism,  and  spirituality.  The 
eighth  generation  flowered  out  in  the  beauty  of  a 
character  rarely  equaled  in  the  person  of  Mary  Ann 
Phillips,  the  mother  of  Phillips  Brooks.  In  spiritual 
passion  and  sacrificial  devotion,  she  ranks  with  the 
great  mothers  of  all  time.  In  spiritual-mindedness, 
she  recalls  the  mother  of  Saint  Augustine,  of  John 
Wesley,  of  Horace  Bushnell.  “She  had  a  deep  in¬ 
terior  life  of  the  soul,”  says  Professor  Allen,  “whose 
phases  were  more  real  and  vital  than  the  phenomena 
of  the  passing  world.  .  .  .  From  his  childhood  to 
his  death,  the  inexpressible  tenderness  of  Phillips 

Brooks  for  his  mother  was  one  of  the  deepest  char- 

157 


158  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

acteristics  of  his  being,  as  her  influence  was  one  of 
the  higher  sources  of  his  power.” 

For  nine  generations,  also,  we  can  trace  the  ances¬ 
tral  stream  of  the  Brooks  family.  On  this  side  of 
the  house  there  is,  indeed,  a  different  atmosphere. 
Negatively,  there  is  an  absence  of  predominant  devo¬ 
tion  to  intellectual  and  spiritual  ends.  Positively, 
there  is  a  prevailing  tendency  to  practical  affairs. 
They  are  men  of  business,  men  of  patriotism,  men 
of  unflinching  integrity.  When,  therefore,  William 
Gray  Brooks  and  Mary  Ann  Phillips  were  married 
in  North  Andover  in  1833,  there  was  the  union  of 
two  strains  of  as  pure,  unadulterated  Puritanism  as 
perhaps  ever  commingled.  And  so  it  was  into  an 
unpretentious  house,  but  a  true  Christian  home,  on 
High  Street,  Boston,  that  Phillips  Brooks  was  born 
on  December  13,  1835.  We  propose,  in  our  study, 
to  gather  his  life  about  the  three  periods  measuring 
his  wonderful  career :  First,  the  Period  of  Self- 
Discovery.  Second,  the  Period  of  Unfoldment. 
Third,  the  Period  of  Ripening. 

1 

No  matter  what  is  revealed  later  on,  one  of  the 
profoundly  interesting  periods  of  a  great  man’s  life 
is  that  of  self-discovery — those  strange,  mystic,  awk¬ 
ward,  aching  years  in  which  a  boy  of  genius  is  trying 
to  find  himself.  Like  all  healthy  children  at  the  age 


Phillips  Brooks  159 

of  three,  we  find  baby  Brooks  wanting  something. 
His  father  is  away  from  home,  and  his  mother 
writes:  “Phillips  says,  ‘Tell  Papa  I  have  learned  to 
use  a  fork/  and  wants  you  to  bring  him  a  red- 
handled  knife  and  fork/’  Red,  by  the  way,  con¬ 
tinued  to  be  his  favorite  color  through  life.  At  four, 
he  comes  home  from  a  private  school  crying.  He 
explains  the  cause  of  his  tears  by  saying  the  teacher 
had  told  him  to  write  a  composition  on  “The  Ele¬ 
phant.”  At  seven,  he  writes  a  letter  to  his  mother 
and  signs  it,  “Your  affectionate  friend,  Phillips 
Brooks.”  About  this  time,  there  is  a  pencil  story 
worth  recalling.  One  night  the  boys  were  in  the 
back  parlor,  with  their  slates  and  pencils,  preparing 
lessons  for  the  morrow.  Phillips  had  a  new  pencil, 
which  he  continued  to  thrust  further  and  further 
into  his  mouth.  Finally,  it  went  down  his  throat. 
He  at  once  asked  his  mother  what  would  be  the 
result  if  any  one  swallowed  a  pencil.  She  told  him 
that  he  would  probably  die.  Phillips  said  nothing 
more.  But  nothing  more  was  ever  heard  of  the  pen¬ 
cil,  either.  At  eleven,  he  entered  the  Boston  Latin 
School.  He  may  not  have  been,  at  the  outset,  the 
best  of  students.  For  in  his  twelfth  year,  he  wrote 
on  a  scrap  of  paper,  which  is  still  preserved  as  a 
precious  document,  the  following  resolution :  “I, 
Phillips  Brooks,  do  hereby  promise,  and  pledge  my¬ 
self  to  study,  to  the  best  of  my  ability.”  It  was  in 


160  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

this  Latin  School  that  he  received  fine  training  in  the 
classics.  It  was  here,  also,  that  he  began  to  manifest 
that  literary  style,  which  is  peculiarly  his  own,  and 
which  gives  such  distinctive  power  to  his  sermons 
and  addresses. 

He  was  in  his  sixteenth  year  when  he  entered  Har¬ 
vard  College.  His  Harvard  career  shows  that  he 
had  ability  for  genuine  scholarship.  Yet  it  also 
shows  that  he  did  not  aspire  to  maintain  high  rank 
in  his  class.  He  stood  fifth  as  a  freshman,  sixteenth 
as  a  sophomore,  thirteenth  as  a  junior,  and  sixty- 
sixth  as  a  senior.  He  had  no  inclination  for  math¬ 
ematics,  exhibited  some  taste  for  natural  history, 
succeeded  in  chemistry,  indifferently  endured  the 
natural  sciences.  He  was,  however,  a  true  lover 
of  history,  especially  in  its  biographical  form.  But 
he  cared  nothing  for  dry-as-dust  historic  facts  as 
presented  in  the  class-room.  He  despised  elocution, 
because  he  thought  that  it  begot  self-consciousness. 
He  maintained  a  high  grade  in  intellectual  philos¬ 
ophy,  rhetoric,  and  logic.  But  there  was  one  depart¬ 
ment  in  which  he  was  the  acknowledged  leader,  and 
that  was  the  languages.  He  toyed  with  French, 
respected  German,  stood  very  high  in  Latin,  and 
uniformly  excelled  in  Greek.  Now,  his  biographer 
sums  up  this  phase  of  his  career  by  saying  that 
Brooks  could  have  been  what  is  technically  known 
as  a  scholar.  But  “what  stood  in  his  way  was  his 


Phillips  Brooks  161 

love  of  literature  as  the  revelation  of  man,  the 
yearning  to  enter  into  the  deeper  experiences  of  life, 
to  know  the  world  he  lived  in.”  And  yet,  I  think,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  in  the  light  of  his  after 
development,  that  the  very  thing  which  stood  in  his 
way  as  an  all-round  scholar,  was  also  the  very  thing 
which  enabled  Phillips  Brooks  to  discover  the  person 
for  whom  he  was  searching — himself.  For,  like 
many  another  youth,  deaf  and  dumb  to  mathematics 
and  the  natural  sciences,  the  voice  of  the  world’s 
supreme  literature  found  a  rich  response  in  the 
depths  of  his  being.  He  at  once  obeyed  that  voice, 
rose  up  and  followed  on  to  those  shining  heights, 
where  he  began  to  forever  associate  with  the  master 
spirits  of  the  ages. 

But  just  what  of  a  distinctly  religious  character 
was  going  on  in  the  boy’s  soul  at  this  time,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  On  both  sides  of  the  sea,  the  pre¬ 
vailing  mood  was  one  of  religious  doubt.  We  are 
told  that  in  the  nineteenth  century  religious  faith 
and  hope  reached  their  lowest  point.  Matthew 
Arnold  describes  it  as  “the  wandering  between  two 
worlds,  one  dead,  the  other  powerless  to  be  born.” 
As  Brooks  failed  to  join  the  Church,  though  the 
proper  age  was  “from  sixteen  upwards,”  and  though 
he  knew  that  the  consuming  desire  of  his  mother 
was  to  have  him  confirmed,  it  is  possible  that  he 
was  undergoing  some  inward  religious  struggle. 


1 62  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

After  all,  I  confess  that  this  is  nothing  more  than 
inference.  For,  in  studying  Phillips  Brooks,  we 
must  remember  that  from  childhood  to  the  day  of 
his  death,  he  scarcely  ever  shared  with  a  human 
being,  not  even  the  mother  whom  he  adored,  those 
profound  secrets  of  his  inner  life,  which  were  known 
only  to  God  and  to  his  own  soul.  While  simplicity 
was  the  key-word  of  his  youth  and  manhood,  his 
“was  a  character  singularly  complex  despite  its  sim¬ 
plicity,  a  career  wherein  there  were  epochs  and  dis¬ 
tinct  phases  of  development.” 

As  we  know,  his  first  attempt  to  accomplish  some¬ 
thing  in  practical  life  met  with  conspicuous  failure. 
I  refer  to  his  brief  career  as  a  teacher  in  the  Boston 
Latin  School.  I  have  a  first  and  a  secondary  reason 
for  explaining  that  failure.  But  I  mention,  in 
passing,  only  the  secondary,  which  is  this :  The 
crowd  of  boys  over  which  he  was  placed  as  teacher 
deserved  the  argument  of  a  pugilist,  rather  than 
the  classical  refinement  of  the  future  preacher,  fresh 
from  college.  Bare  recital  of  a  few  tricks  that  class 
played  upon  the  inexperienced  young  teacher  will, 
I  believe,  enforce  my  conclusion.  One  boy  threw  a 
handful  of  shot  into  Brooks’  face.  Looking  around, 
the  frustrated  pedagogue  saw  an  innocent-looking 
youth,  holding  up  the  very  hand  which  had  thrown 
the  shot.  But  the  young  imp  seemed  to  have  been 
suddenly  regenerated.  For  he  was  in  the  deferential 


Phillips  Brooks  163 

attitude  of  one  who  wanted  to  make  earnest  inquiry 
concerning  school  work.  Another  lad  plugged  up 
the  thermometer  with  snow.  After  the  mercury  had 
fallen  below  the  freezing  point,  the  rascals  com¬ 
plained  of  the  cold  until  the  room,  already  hot,  was 
made  unbearable  by  piling  more  fuel  upon  the  fire. 
“Then,”  we  are  told,  “the  windows  were  thrown 
open  and  the  opposite  process  begun,  till  the  ther¬ 
mometer,  reinforced  with  snow,  called  for  a  reversal 
of  tactics.”  After  prayers  one  morning,  he  looked 
up  and  saw  his  boys  bedecked  with  eyeglasses,  made 
of  strips  of  tin,  filched  from  a  neighboring  tinshop. 
Then  he  discovered  that  he  was  locked  in  the  room 
with  that  wicked  class.  He  was  also  compelled  to 
let  a  boy  down  from  the  window  to  the  ground,  at 
the  same  time  beseeching  him  to  remove  the  obstruc¬ 
tions  from  the  plugged-up  key-hole.  Frankly,  is  it 
any  wonder  that  Phillips  Brooks  failed  as  a  teacher 
in  the  Boston  Latin  School  ? 

But  because  this  very  failure  as  a  teacher  marks  a 
crisis  in  his  life,  it  must  not  be  lightly  considered. 
For  the  awful  desperation,  the  unutterable  despair, 
the  untold  agony  he  experienced  during  the  six 
months  following  his  resignation  as  a  teacher — these 
are  things  which  make  one  uncover  in  the  presence 
of  a  soul  endeavoring  to  understand  its  majesty  and 
its  mystery.  He  was  at  this  time  a  chivalrous  youth 
of  twenty,  possessed  of  a  sensitiveness  of  nature  but 


164  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

seldom  paralleled,  and  handicapped  by  a  reserve 
which  was  profound  indeed.  With  radiant  face  and 
high  ideals  he  had  walked  joyously  up  to  the  Palace 
of  Life,  rung  the  door-bell  and  waited  for  an  answer. 
For  a  brief  moment,  a  mystic  door  stood  slightly  ajar. 
Then  an  unseen  hand  rudely  slammed  it  in  his  face, 
leaving  him  without  in  the  deepening  gloom.  But 
it  was  while  standing  there  in  the  vast  gloom  of 
his  aching  disappointment,  that  he  visioned  that 
Light  which  lighteth  every  man,  coming  into  the 
world,  heard  a  Voice  sweet  with  the  melody  of  an 
infinite  music,  beheld  a  Face  he  was  to  love  and  be 
loved  by  forever.  It  was  now  that  he  sought  that 
true  confessor  of  souls,  President  Walker,  of  Har¬ 
vard  College.  The  details  of  that  sacred  interview 
were  never  given  to  the  world.  But  we  do  know 
this :  Doctor  Walker  advised  Phillips  Brooks  to 
study  for  the  ministry.  Coming  out  from  that  inter¬ 
view,  he  was  seen  by  a  young  tutor  named  Charles 
W.  Eliot,  who  was  on  his  way  to  Doctor  Walker’s 
home.  Eliot  says  the  face  of  Brooks  was  of  “a 
deathly  whiteness,  the  evidence  of  some  great  crisis.” 
In  1881,  our  world-famous  preacher  called  upon  this 
same  tutor,  now  president  emeritus  of  Harvard  Uni¬ 
versity,  to  decline  the  offer  of  a  professorship. 
Again  his  face  was  strangely  white,  and  President 
Eliot  remembered  the  vision  of  1856. 

On  the  eve  of  his  departure  for  the  seminary  at 


Phillips  Brooks  165 

Alexandria,  Virginia,  Phillips  Brooks  wrote  these 
words  in  his  journal:  “As  we  pass  from  some  ex¬ 
perience  to  some  experiment,  from  a  tried  to  an 
untried  scene  of  life,  it  is  as  when  we  turn  to  a 
new  page  in  a  book  we  have  never  read  before,  but 
whose  author  we  know  and  love  and  trust  to  give 
us  on  every  page  words  of  counsel  and  purity  and 
strengthening  virtue.”  Now,  I  cannot  stay  to  ana¬ 
lyze  those  three  years  in  the  seminary.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  many  of  his  friends  thought  the  coming 
great  preacher  was  throwing  his  life  away,  and 
frankly  told  him  so.  Fortunately,  as  I  have  already 
said,  Phillips  Brooks  was  mothered  by  a  true  mother. 
She  not  only  labored  six  sons  into  life — she  also 
prayed  six  sons  into  the  Kingdom  of  God.  She, 
too,  believed  that  her  marvelous  boy  was  throwing 
his  life  away.  But  he  was  throwing  it  away,  she 
thought,  only  to  find  it  again,  multiplied  an  hundred¬ 
fold.  She  wrote:  “Keep  close  to  your  Saviour,  dear 
Philly,  and  remember  the  sacred  vows  that  are 
upon  you,  and  you  will  surely  prosper.”  Love-lyrics 
like  this  flowed  from  her  mother-heart  into  the  life 
of  her  noble  son,  until  she  ceased  to  walk  with  God 
here  to  abide  at  home  with  Him  forever. 

That  the  change  from  Boston  life  to  the  seminary 
was  a  marked  one,  may  be  gathered  from  the  young 
theologue’s  letters,  many  of  which  abound  in  humor. 
On  the  day  of  his  arrival  at  the  seminary,  he  wrote 


1 66  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

that  his  lordly  apartment  was  a  garret  in  an  old 
building  called  the  Wilderness.  Its  furniture  con¬ 
sisted  of  a  bedstead  and  a  washstand.  He  says:  “I 
looked  in,  threw  down  my  carpet  bag,  and  ran.” 
Speaking  of  bedsteads,  we  recall  that  they  were  a 
bone  of  contention  throughout  his  life,  no  matter 
in  what  part  of  the  world  he  traveled.  And  it  is 
only  fair  to  say  that  the  fault  was  not  always  with 
the  bedstead.  For  Phillips  Brooks,  during  almost 
two-thirds  of  his  life,  was  six  feet  and  four  inches 
long.  He  says  he  escaped  from  bed  once  at  an 
untimely  hour  because,  to  use  his  own  words:  “I 
could  not  stretch  out  straight  or  make  the  narrow 
bed  clothes  come  over  me.”  He  wrote  from  Athens : 
“The  classic  fleas  fed  on  us  through  the  dewy  night.” 
We  learn,  also,  that  the  seminary  furniture  and  bill 
of  fare  were  in  perfect  harmony.  For  he  writes  to 
his  father:  “Did  you  ever  eat  tomato  pies?  Well, 
they  alternate  with  boiled  rice,  which  is  troubled 
with  water  on  the  brain,  as  our  daily  dessert.” 
Already  allied  to  the  spirit  of  progress,  which  was 
manifest  throughout  his  career,  he  adds :  “Last  night 
a  new  dish  made  its  appearance,  which  looked  like  a 
flapjack  that  had  tried  to  be  a  loaf  of  brown  bread 
and  failed  in  the  attempt.” 

Now,  it  was  in  the  seminary  that  Brooks  exhibited 
a  capacity  for  scholarship,  which  had  been  somewhat 
lacking  in  college.  From  the  graves  of  Greek  and 


Phillips  Brooks  167 

Latin,  no  longer  dead  languages  to  him,  there  flamed 
forth  the  resurrection  power  of  new  worlds  of 
thought  and  experience.  Entirely  distinct  from  his 
class  work,  the  scope,  the  variety,  the  strength  of  his 
reading  at  this  time  is  nothing  short  of  marvelous. 
Why,  he  reminds  one  of  Macaulay,  eating  and 
digesting  books  as  a  ravenously  hungry  boy  eats 
buckwheat  cakes,  whose  blessed  adhesion  is  assured 
by  an  abundant  supply  of  delicious  country  butter, 
whose  haunting  flavor  is  far  removed  from  the  realm 
of  probabilities  by  genuine  soakings  of  pure  maple 
syrup.  And  his  notebooks  show  that  he  was  not 
engaged  in  mere  discursive  reading,  however  wide. 
Rather,  that  the  tremendous  impact  of  the  world’s 
thought  had  shaken  the  depths  of  his  nature,  that 
his  very  soul  was  being  shaped  into  a  kind  of  sensi¬ 
tized  plate,  which  would  in  coming  years  photograph 
with  exactness,  fineness,  and  majesty,  the  life  of 
God  in  man’s  soul,  and  the  life  of  man  in  history.  It 
was  at  Alexandria,  I  think,  that  Phillips  Brooks 
discovered  himself.  Through  self-discovery  he  also 
discovered  the  master  principle  of  his  life-work, 
viz. :  The  principle  which  proclaims  the  eternal  value 
of  the  human  soul,  revealed  by  the  incarnation  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  redeemed  by  the  passion 
of  God  on  Calvary.  Having  found  his  principle,  he 
moved  steadily  forward  in  his  own  magnificent  in¬ 
terpretation  of  it.  He  held  that  the  human  soul,  in 


168  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

order  to  be  loved,  must  be  known.  And  it  was  for 
qualifying  himself  to  interpret  this  truth  to  men, 
that  he  wandered  up  and  down  the  highways  of 
literature.  “But  wherever  he  went,  from  great  writ¬ 
ers  to  those  less  known,  heathen  and  Christian, 
ancient  and  modern,  he  never  failed  to  extract  judg¬ 
ments  of  value,  unsuspected  revelations  of  the 
beauty,  the  dignity,  the  greatness,  the  worth,  of  the 
human  soul.” 

And,  mark  you,  when  Phillips  Brooks,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one,  had  discovered  himself,  he  had  done 
it  forever.  Of  course  he  expanded,  he  broadened, 
he  deepened,  he  heightened,  he  ripened.  But  it  was 
only  more  of  the  same  kind,  rather  than  more  of  a 
different  kind,  of  the  stuff  out  of  which  great  life  and 
character  are  wrought.  I  think  his  words  concern¬ 
ing  John  Henry  Newman  give  keen  insight  into 
his  own  life.  He  said  :  “Newman  was  a  remarkable 
man,  by  no  means  of  the  first-class,  for  he  never  got 
a  final  principle,  nor  showed  a  truly  brave  mind; 
but  there  was  great  beauty  in  his  character,  and  his 
intellect  was  very  subtle.”  Now,  his  journals  reveal 
that,  fortunately  for  the  world  and  for  himself, 
Brooks  got  hold  of  final  principles  in  his  boyhood. 
For  example:  He  believed  in  his  boyhood  that  the 
Incarnation  meant  that  God  and  man  had  met  to¬ 
gether  in  the  person  of  Christ,  the  fullness  of  God 
and  the  complete  perfection  of  humanity;  and  he 


Phillips  Brooks  169 

believed  it  always.  Again :  He  believed  in  his  boy¬ 
hood  that  Christ’s  death  on  the  cross  was  in  some 
mysterious,  organic  way  connected  with  the  forgive¬ 
ness  of  guilty  human  sin;  and  he  changed  worlds 
with  the  same  conviction.  In  a  word,  Brooks  dis¬ 
covered  in  his  youth  the  unity  of  life  in  Jesus 
Christ.  And  with  increasing  splendor,  he  preached 
“that  all  life  is  one  great  harmonic  chorus,  appealing 
to  the  individual  soul  to  join  in  the  universal  strain.” 
Blessed  is  the  man  who  discovers  a  final  principle  at 
life’s  threshold  rather  than  at  life’s  end! 

11 

Now,  if  I  have  dwelt  overmuch  on  the  formative 
years  of  Brooks,  it  is  that  we  may  approach  the 
period  of  his  unfoldment  with  a  just  appreciation 
of  the  backgrounds  in  which  his  life  and  ministry 
were  cast.  I  believe  no  man  ever  came  to  his  work 
with  more  thorough  equipment.  The  subject  of  his 
first  sermon  was :  “Christ  as  the  Centralizing  Power 
in  the  Spiritual  Life.”  The  text  is  II.  Cor.  xi.  3 : 
“The  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ.”  He  afterwards 
said  the  sermon  was  a  twofold  failure — first,  it  was 
lacking  in  simplicity,  and,  second,  it  had  nothing  in 
it  of  Christ.  Yet  I  think  a  study  of  the  sermon  will 
bear  out  Professor  Allen’s  statement  that  it  has  “the 
evidence  of  a  marvelous  maturity.”  He  was  less 
than  twenty-three  when  he  wrote  it,  and  still  in  his 


170  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

seminary  course.  But  he  strikes  with  masterful  and 
prophetic  power  the  truth  that  Christ  is  the  center 
toward  which  all  roads  lead — “all  truth,  all  reality, 
in  whatever  sphere  manifested,  in  literature,  art,  or 
science,  all  the  positive  acquisitions  of  man  in  the 
long  range  of  history,  all  great  events  and  move¬ 
ments,  have  their  affiliation  with  Christ.” 

This,  then,  was  the  style  of  preaching  to  which 
forty  or  fifty  people  were  listening  in  the  Sharon 
Mission,  three  miles  from  Alexandria,  in  1858-59. 
One  Sunday  two  strange  faces  were  seen  among  the 
Virginia  mountaineers.  They  were  men  who  had 
come  to  hear  and  then  to  call  Phillips  Brooks  to  the 
Church  of  the  Advent  in  Philadelphia.  In  July, 
1859,  he  preached  his  first  sermons  there,  having 
agreed  to  supply  the  pulpit  for  three  months.  Many 
years  afterwards,  he  playfully  recalled  an  incident  of 
those  first  weeks  of  ministerial  experience.  Walking 
home  with  a  vestryman  one  Sunday  evening,  Brooks 
suggested  that  perhaps  he  had  better  not  remain 
even  for  the  three  months.  The  vestryman  gave 
him  the  chills  by  answering:  “Well,  as  long  as  you 
have  begun,  you  had  better  stay  out  the  time  for 
which  you  were  hired.” 

However,  he  had  been  in  the  Church  of  the 
Advent  only  seven  months,  when  he  received  a  call 
from  St.  John’s  Church,  Cincinnati,  at  that  time  the 
largest  and  wealthiest  Episcopal  Church  west  of  the 


Phillips  Brooks  171 

Allegheny  Mountains.  At  the  beginning  of  his 
second  year  in  the  ministry,  his  fame  had  crossed  the 
continent.  He  received  urgent  calls,  extending  from 
Newport  to  San  Francisco.  The  little  church  on  the 
corner  of  York  Avenue  and  Buttonwood  Street  had 
become  a  veritable  magnet,  drawing  people  from  all 
parts  of  the  city.  On  Sunday  evenings,  the  streets 
in  the  locality  of  the  church  were  filled  with  car¬ 
riages.  And  lest  the  admiration  of  the  Quaker  City 
should  spoil  the  darling  of  her  heart,  once  again 
we  hear  his  mother’s  voice  saying  to  the  brilliant 
young  preacher :  “I  had  rather  hear  you  praised  for 
holiness  than  for  talent,  though  of  course  that  is 
unspeakably  precious  when  used  in  God’s  service. 
But,  my  dear  Philly,  let  no  human  praise  make  you 
proud,  but  be  humble  as  the  Master  you  serve,  and 
never  forget  what  an  honor  it  is  to  be  the  servant 
of  Christ.”  Among  the  greatest  ordination  sermons 
ever  preached  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
are  the  sermons  preached  by  the  mother  of  Phillips 
Brooks  to  Phillips  Brooks  himself ! 

What,  then,  was  the  secret  of  this  young  physical, 
mental,  and  spiritual  giant,  whose  ministry  was  now 
beginning  to  throb  through  the  nation’s  life?  As 
this  question  was  asked  for  over  thirty  years 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world,  I  shall 
answer  it  in  the  words  of  the  truest  interpreter  of 
Phillips  Brooks :  “The  world  was  right  in  fastening 


172  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

upon  his  true  and  genuine  manhood  as  his  pre¬ 
dominant  characteristic.”  Back  of  all  he  said,  back 
of  all  the  wonderful  manner  in  which  he  said  it, 
stood  his  total  manhood,  all  of  his  faculties  unified 
in  Christ,  who  “had  taken  him,  as  the  sovereign 
harmony  takes  the  wandering  tone.”  He  believed 
that  a  man  whose  mind  and  heart  are  not  working 
in  unison  gives  no  true,  abiding  light.  Such  a  man, 
he  said,  is  like  a  match  which  will  not  strike  without 
the  box;  and  you  haven't  got  the  box.  The  world 
was  saying  then,  as  it  has  ever  said,  as  it  is  saying 
today :  “Remove  first  the  obstacles  which  stand  in 
the  way  of  human  progress,  and  then  men  will  be 
able  to  live.”  Young  Phillips  Brooks  laid  his  ax 
at  the  root  of  this  fallacious  tree.  He  struck  it  hard 
blows,  and  his  weapon  had  a  keen  edge.  And  while 
the  decayed  chips  were  falling  all  around  him,  he 
cried:  “The  world,  humanity,  has  already  been  re¬ 
deemed  by  Christ.  The  opportunities  of  the  divine 
sonship  are  open  to  every  man.  Live !  Live  greatly 
now.”  He  gave  us  our  greatest  definition  of  preach¬ 
ing  in  three  words.  What  is  Christian  preaching? 
He  answered:  “ Truth  through  personality.”  He 
defined  liberty  as  “the  genuine  ability  of  a  living 
creature  to  manifest  its  whole  nature,  and  to  be 
itself  most  unrestrainedly.”  And  truly,  these  defini¬ 
tions  put  on  flesh  and  blood  in  the  unfolding  man¬ 
hood  of  this  pulpit  prodigy.  “Now,”  he  cried,  “here 


Phillips  Brooks  1 73 

is  a  truly  new  conception  of  life:  Man  is  something 
to  be  lighted,  and  to  be  obedient  to  the  flame  that 
illuminates  him.”  Do  we  wonder  that  the  students 
of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  coming  out  of 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity  on  Sunday  after¬ 
noons,  imagined  they  beheld  a  rosy  splendor  on  the 
face  of  the  late  afternoon  sky?  One  of  them  says: 
“The  very  heavens  were  on  fire,  not  because  the  sun 
was  setting  across  the  Schuylkill,  but  because  the 
preacher  had  projected  a  light  into  the  open  sky 
of  the  heavens — the  light  of  the  mystic,  the  light  of 
the  prophet,  the  light  which  never  was,  on  sea  or 
land.” 

Here  he  was,  then,  at  twenty-six,  the  most  dis¬ 
cussed  preacher  in  Philadelphia.  Moreover,  his  in¬ 
fluence  had  broken  the  bounds  of  his  parish  and 
denomination,  overflowing  the  city.  He  was  not 
only  the  foremost  preacher,  but  one  of  the  Quaker 
City’s  foremost  citizens  as  well.  Is  there  not  some¬ 
thing  strangely  beautiful  in  beholding  this  brave 
youth,  this  clerical  Sir  Galahad,  associating  with 
men  from  all  walks  of  life,  old  enough  to  be  his 
father?  And  yet,  there  seemed  nothing  incongru¬ 
ous  in  such  fellowship.  While  he  held  a  high  posi¬ 
tion  and  represented  strong  social  influence,  chiefly 
did  these  older  men  gather  around  him  because  his 
personality  was  simply  invaluable.  His  “fascinat¬ 
ing  eloquence  gave  a  new  and  potent  charm  to  the 


174  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

cause  so  dear  to  them.”  And  what  was  that  cause? 
Why,  the  deathless  cause  of  human  freedom!  Al¬ 
ready  the  black  clouds  of  civil  war  were  hovering 
over  the  land.  Next  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  no  soul 
felt  a  deeper  dread  than  did  the  soul  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  lest  their  unsheathed  lightnings  should 
blight  and  blast  our  national  tree.  And  now  it  was 
that  our  White  Knight’s  soul  seemed  to  expand  into 
a  vast  cathedral,  along  whose  invisible  aisles  he 
heard  the  tramp  of  a  million  feet,  he  heard  the  rain 
of  bitter  tears,  he  heard  the  sacrificial  flow  of  the 
nation’s  most  precious  blood.  But  from  whose  heav¬ 
enly  dome  he  also  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God 
of  the  nations  thundering:  “Let  my  people  go!  Let 
my  people  go!”  And  when  Phillips  Brooks  had 
heard  that  voice,  this  young  idealist,  this  velvet- 
souled  poet,  this  snow-hearted  Saint  John  became 
an  ancient  Moses  coming  down  from  a  modern  Sinai, 
with  the  tables  of  God’s  eternal  law  in  his  hands, 
with  the  music  of  God’s  eternal  truth  in  his  heart, 
with  the  splendor  of  God’s  eternal  light  in  his  face, 
and  the  people  were  afraid  to  come  nigh  him! 
Though  he  wist  not,  like  Israel’s  leader,  that  the  skin 
of  his  face  shone,  none  the  less  did  he  flame  and 
flash  like  an  incarnate  Vesuvius! 

Now,  Brooks  was  at  this  time  exemplifying  what 
had  become  the  synthetic  principle  of  his  life- 
method.  What  was  that  principle?  “The  nature 


Phillips  Brooks  175 

and  source  of  power,  how  it  was  to  be  fed,  how 
ideas  and  truths  and  beliefs  were  to  be  transmuted 
into  power.”  As  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  it  is  also 
true  of  Brooks:  “There  was  in  him  something  of 
the  seer  or  prophet  who  beholds  by  direct  vision 
what  others  know  only  by  report.”  He  was  richly 
endowed  with  the  historical  imagination,  which 
enabled  him  to  enter  into  the  life  of  the  race.  And 
this,  in  turn,  made  it  possible  for  the  racial  life  to 
flow  back  into  his  own  individual  being.  He  ad¬ 
mired  physical  power  wherever  manifested — in 
worlds,  in  mountains,  in  seas,  in  men.  It  was  one  of 
his  habits  to  stand  as  close  as  possible  to  the  majes¬ 
tic  rush  of  a  giant  locomotive,  thundering  onward 
with  the  great  express  train,  as  if  it  in  some  strange 
way  reflected  the  power  within  him.  When  asked 
in  later  life  what  he  would  rather  have  been  if  he 
had  not  become  a  preacher,  he  answered:  “I  would 
like  to  have  been  the  captain  of  a  great  ocean  steamer, 
or,  better  than  that,  a  young  girl  in  her  teens,  awak¬ 
ening  to  the  consciousness  of  her  beauty,  and  with¬ 
out  effort  subjecting  to  her  sway  those  who  came 
into  her  presence.” 

But  into  the  higher  realms  of  power  it  was  his 
ruling  passion  to  go.  He  was  always  reading  while 
traveling.  Finishing  a  book,  he  threw  it  out  of  the 
car-window.  “You  might  trace  him  in  his  journey- 
ings,”  says  his  biographer,  “by  the  trail  of  books.” 


176  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

He  loved  to  meet  and  greet  the  spirit  of  the  strong 
man  wherever  he  trod  the  pathways  of  history.  He 
claimed  him  for  his  elder  brother,  though  he  were 
Homer,  Socrates,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Wesley,  Ed¬ 
wards,  Robertson,  Bushnell,  or  Beecher.  He  pos¬ 
sessed  an  ingrained  admiration  for  power.  Com¬ 
bined  with  his  spiritual  genius,  this  inborn  admira¬ 
tion  enabled  him  more  fully  to  reincarnate  the  power 
of  the  Highest,  which  overshadowed  and  made  him 
a  moving  tabernacle  of  power.  Henry  M.  Stan¬ 
ley  once  heard  Brooks  preach.  He  confessed  that  it 
was  not  only  the  most  rousing  sermon  he  ever 
heard,  but  that  it  actually  made  him  feel  excited. 
He  affirmed  that,  as  a  young  man,  such  a  sermon 
would  have  stirred  him  to  action.  This,  then,  was 
the  man  who  stood  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trin¬ 
ity  and  spoke  these  words,  which  still  burn  like  a 
subtle  fire :  “The  devil  of  slavery  had  kissed  the 
strong  shoulders  of  the  Republic,  and  the  serpents 
sprung  from  his  defiling  lips  were  preying  upon  her 
life.  It  was  agony  to  tear  them  off,  but  it  was  death 
to  let  them  remain.  Despite  our  anguish,  we  had 
taken  courage  to  rid  us  of  the  abomination.”  And 
then,  while  Lincoln’s  dead  body  lay  in  the  City  of 
Brotherly  Love,  the  scorching,  raging  fire  of  the 
prophet’s  eloquence  was  subdued  into  the  sobbing 
tones  of  the  broken  heart  and  the  saint’s  vision.  He 
then  said  of  the  martyred  President  what  men  are 


Phillips  Brooks  177 

saying  still  of  the  mighty  preacher :  “In  him  was 
vindicated  the  greatness  of  real  goodness  and  the 
goodness  of  real  greatness.”  Thus,  in  those  un¬ 
folding  years,  Shelley’s  words  best  describe  him  : 

“All  familiar  things  he  touched, 

All  common  words  he  spoke,  became 
Like  forms  and  sounds  of  a  diviner  world.” 

hi 

Coming  now  to  the  period  of  his  ripening,  I  am 
aware  that  you  have  already  asked  the  question: 
“Why  does  he  not  say  something  about  Phillips 
Brooks  and  Boston?  For  is  not  Phillips  Brooks 
Boston,  and  is  not  Boston  Phillips  Brooks?”  Now, 
your  question  is  entirely  valid.  But  it  is  well  to 
remember  that  behind  life’s  foregrounds  lie  life’s 
backgrounds.  What  I  mean  is  this :  For  Saint 
Augustine,  the  Milan  garden  lay  behind  the  diocese 
of  Hippo.  For  Chrysostom,  the  desert  and  the  cave 
lay  behind  Constantinople.  For  Edwards,  North¬ 
ampton  lay  behind  Stockbridge  and  its  deathless 
books.  For  Robertson,  Winchester,  Cheltenham, 
Heidelberg,  and  Oxford  lay  behind  Brighton.  For 
Maurice,  Bubbenhall  and  King’s  College  lay  behind 
Cambridge.  For  Liddon,  Wantage  lay  behind  Ox¬ 
ford  and  Saint  Paul’s.  For  Beecher,  Indianapolis 
lay  behind  Brooklyn.  For  Bushnell,  New  Haven 
lay  behind  Hartford.  For  Simpson,  Greencastle 


i78  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

lay  behind  the  Episcopacy.  For  Matheson,  Innel- 
len  lay  behind  Edinburgh.  And  so,  for  Phillips 
Brooks,  Cambridge,  Alexandria,  and  Philadelphia 
lay  behind  Boston.  Of  his  Boston  ministry,  I  wish 
to  speak  of  Brooks  the  preacher  and  the  man. 

He  was  thirty-four  years  old  when  he  went,  as 
rector,  to  Trinity  Church.  I  have  not  time  to  con¬ 
sider  the  struggle  in  his  own  soul,  the  anxiety  of 
his  father  and  the  attendant  sickness  of  his  mother, 
because  he  refused  the  first  call  to  come  back  to  his 
boyhood  home.  And,  finally,  on  his  accepting  the 
second  invitation,  how  his  own  Church  and  the  City 
of  Philadelphia  were  fairly  stunned,  as  if  they  had 
been  the  victims  of  some  dire  catastrophe,  so  deeply 
and  intricately  had  he  woven  himself  into  the 
organic  life  of  the  community  during  his  ten  years 
there.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  however,  that  Bos¬ 
ton — the  “Hub,”  the  immovable — was  moved  at  his 
coming,  and  began  to  revolve  around  his  ministry 
as  have  few  cities  in  the  history  of  Christian  preach¬ 
ing.  On  Sunday,  October  31,  1869,  he  preached  his 
first  sermons  as  rector  of  Trinity  Church.  His 
morning  text  was :  “I  must  work  the  works  of  Him 
that  sent  me,  while  it  is  day :  the  night  cometh,  when 
no  man  can  work.”  His  afternoon  text  was :  “My 
meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me,  and  to 
finish  His  work.”  I  recall  the  texts,  because  they 
are  an  index  to  the  new  power,  they  pitch  the  key 


Phillips  Brooks  179 

of  the  new  music,  they  suggest  the  new  and  deeper 
spiritual  splendor  now  enfolding  him,  they  strike  a 
new  note  of  passionate  urgency,  which  increased  in 
volume,  depth,  and  grandeur  for  the  next  twenty- 
two  years. 

Before  he  had  become  well  settled,  somebody — 
and  I  am  half  inclined  to  believe  it  was  Almighty 
God — cleaned  up  his  Boston  parish  by  sweeping  the 
old  Church  away  with  a  broom  of  fire,  that  he 
might  have  a  building  in  some  sense  adequate  to 
his  own  greatness  and  majesty.  I  never  enter  the 
new  Trinity  Church,  I  scarcely  ever  think  of  it 
except  as  Phillips  Brooks  dressed  up  in  the  splendid 
clothing  of  that  stately  stone  pile.  And  so,  when 
this  preacher-prophet,  with  his  boundless  hopeful¬ 
ness,  with  his  exuberant  vitality,  with  his  mental 
and  spiritual  flame,  swept  like  a  holy,  glowing  radi¬ 
ance  over  Boston,  what  happened  ?  Why,  all 
churches  and  creeds  rose  up  at  once  to  claim  him. 
Unitarians  said :  “He  belongs  to  us.”  Baptists  said : 
“He  belongs  to  us.”  Methodists  said :  “He  belongs 
to  us.”  Presbyterians  said:  “He  belongs  to  us.” 
Congregationalists  said :  “He  belongs  to  us.”  Prot¬ 
estant  Episcopalians  answered,  with  pardonable 
pride:  “You  are  all  mistaken,  he  belongs  to  us.” 
All  of  which,  I  think,  is  but  another  way  of  saying 
that  Phillips  Brooks  belonged  to  no  one  denomina¬ 
tion.  For  the  Lord  of  All  anointed  him  and  pre- 


i8o  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

sented  him  as  a  gift  to  the  Universal  Church  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ! 

Let  us  now  examine  some  individual  witnesses  to 

« 

the  power  of  his  preaching.  One  says :  “As  he  is 
lifted  by  his  theme  into  a  rarefied  atmosphere,  and 
with  a  marvelous  faith  catches  a  glimpse  of  still 
higher  summits  to  be  reached,  like  a  mountain 
climber,  scaling  from  crag  to  crag,  you  are  rapidly 
borne  along  with  him,  till  the  worries  of  earth  look 
very  trifling  from  the  crest  where  he  pauses.”  An¬ 
other  :  “Out  of  twenty  or  more  of  his  sermons  which 
we  have  heard,  there  has  not  been  one  which  would 
have  been  unsuitable  for  a  revival  meeting.  What¬ 
ever  the  subject,  the  central  thought  is  always  the 
cross  of  Christ — the  goodness  of  the  Gospel  to  a  sin¬ 
ful  soul.”  After  hearing  him  preach  in  Grace  Church, 
New  York,  in  1870,  a  writer  in  the  New  York 
Evening  Post  said :  “He  preaches  the  humanity  of 
Channing  with  the  creed  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
strikes  at  the  shirks  and  shams  of  our  day  with 
the  dashing  pluck  and  full  blood  of  Martin  Luther.” 
Principal  Tulloch,  after  hearing  him  in  Boston  in 
1874,  wrote  to  his  wife:  “I  have  just  heard  the 
most  remarkable  sermon  I  ever  heard  in  my  life  (I 
use  the  word  in  no  American  sense)  from  Mr.  Phil¬ 
lips  Brooks,  an  Episcopal  clergyman  here :  equal  to 
the  best  of  Frederick  Robertson’s  sermons,  with  a 
vigor  and  force  of  thought  which  he  has  not  always. 


Phillips  Brooks  181 

I  never  heard  preaching  like  it,  and  you  know  how 
slow  I  am  to  praise  preachers.  So  much  thought 
and  so  much  life  combined;  such  a  reach  of  mind, 
and  such  a  depth  and  insight  of  soul.  I  was  elec¬ 
trified.  I  could  have  got  up  and  shouted.”  Dean 
Stanley  once  invited  Brooks  to  preach  in  Westmin¬ 
ster  Abbey  on  a  Fourth  of  July,  which  fell  on  a 
Sunday.  Many  felt  that  Brooks  had  been  asked  to 
perform  a  difficult  task.  Stanley  himself  was  by  no 
means  assured  of  the  outcome,  with  such  a  red-hot 
American  in  such  a  pulpit  on  such  a  day.  Happily, 
Lady  Frances  Baillie,  a  sister-in-law  of  Dean  Stan¬ 
ley,  has  recalled  an  interesting  incident  connected 
with  the  service.  Immediately  after  its  close,  she 
slipped  into  the  deanery  by  the  private  door,  reach¬ 
ing  the  drawing-room  before  any  of  the  guests  who 
were  to  come  in  from  the  abbey.  She  found  Dean 
Stanley,  with  tears  running  down  his  face,  a  most 
extraordinary  thing  for  him.  On  her  appearance, 
he  burst  out  with  expressions  of  intensest  admira¬ 
tion,  saying:  “I  have  never  been  so  moved  by  any 
sermon  that  I  can  remember ;  and,  oh,  the  wonderful 
taste  and  feeling  of  that  passage  at  the  end !”  When 
asked  how  Brooks  compared  with  the  great  preach¬ 
ers  of  Scotland,  Professor  A.  B.  Bruce  replied:  “It 
is  this  way :  our  great  preachers  take  into  the  pulpit 
a  bucket  full  or  half  full  of  the  Word  of  God,  and 
then,  by  the  force  of  personal  mechanism,  they  at- 


182  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

tempt  to  convey  it  to  the  congregation.  But  this  man 
is  just  a  great  water  main,  attached  to  the  ever¬ 
lasting  reservoir  of  God’s  truth  and  grace  and  love, 
and  streams  of  life,  by  a  heavenly  gravitation,  pour 
through  him  to  refresh  every  weary  soul.”  I  once 
said  to  Doctor  David  Gregg,  himself  a  great 
preacher,  and  former  pastor  of  the  Lafayette  Ave¬ 
nue  Presbyterian  Church,  Brooklyn :  “You  knew 
Phillips  Brooks:  how  did  he  impress  you?”  His 
face  lit  up  as  he  made  this  answer :  “I  lived  in  the 
same  block  with  him  for  several  years.  How  did 
he  impress  me?  Why,  Brooks  was  big  all  over — 
big  at  the  top,  big  at  the  bottom,  big  at  the  center — 
a  towering  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  colossus.” 
Then,  pausing  a  moment,  he  added,  with  charac¬ 
teristic  discrimination:  “The  first  thing  that  hap¬ 
pened  to  you  after  hearing  Brooks  finish  a  sermon 
was  a  kind  of  collapse,  which  was  immediately  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  majestic  feeling  of  bigness  in  your  own 
soul.”  Ah!  I  do  not  wonder,  when  our  White 
Knight  visited  Japan,  the  children  shouted,  as  he 
was  borne  along  the  highways:  “Look!  There  goes 
the  image  of  the  great  Buddha!”  Thus  was  he 
greatly  unique,  splendid,  incomparable.  As  a 
preacher,  Brooks  can,  of  course,  be  imitated  by  no 
man.  But  what  is  far  better,  he  is  a  fountain  from 
which  every  man  may  drink,  because  he  gives  match¬ 
less  expression  to  the  vast  undertones  and  over- 


Phillips  Brooks  183 

tones  of  the  human  heart.  For  he  believed  and 
taught,  with  his  twin  brother  in  the  spirit,  Robert¬ 
son,  of  Brighton,  that — 

.  .  .  “All  the  past  of  time  reveals 
A  bridal  dawn  of  thunder  peals 
Wherever  thought  hath  wedded  fact.” 

But  great  as  he  was  as  a  preacher,  Phillips  Brooks 
was  even  greater  as  a  man.  He  was  not  an  expert 
in  aristocratic  littlenesses,  but  he  was  a  prince  in 
manly  nobilities.  The  late  Doctor  Weir  Mitchell, 
not  only  a  specialist  in  nervous  diseases,  but  a  spe¬ 
cialist  also  in  his  judgment  of  men,  says:  “I  have 
known  a  number  of  men  we  call  great — poets,  states¬ 
men,  soldiers — but  Phillips  Brooks  was  the  only  one 
I  ever  knew  who  seemed  to  be  entirely  great.  I 
have  seen  him  in  many  of  the  varied  relations  of 
life,  and  always  he  left  with  me  a  sense  of  the  com¬ 
petent  largeness  of  his  nature.”  After  lecturing  to 
the  students  of  Andover,  he  closed  by  saying:  “Let 
us  pray.”  One  of  the  students  told  Bishop  Law¬ 
rence  that,  praying  from  the  same  desk  at  which 
they  had  heard  professors  pray,  Brooks  “offered  a 
prayer  which,  as  compared  with  theirs,  was  so  beauti¬ 
ful  that  he  had  to  open  his  eyes  to  see  how  a  man 
looked  when  he  prayed  like  that.”  A  mother  in 
Israel,  ninety-three  years  of  age,  told  me  that  she 
used  to  go  to  Boston  once  a  year  just  to  hear  Phil¬ 
lips  Brooks  pray.  She  said  he  was  even  a  “greater 


184  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

pray-er  than  a  preacher.”  A  workingman  once 
wrote  him  :  “To  me  you  reveal  God  as  no  other  man 
does.  What  I  mean  by  that  is,  I  can’t  think  of  you 
for  ten  consecutive  minutes  without  forgetting  all 
about  you  and  thinking  of  God  instead;  and  when  I 
think  of  God  and  wonder  how  he  will  seem  to  me, 
it  always  comes  round  to  trying  to  conceive  of  you 
enlarged  infinitely  in  every  way.”  A  woman  who 
scrubbed  the  floors  of  Trinity  Church  asked  him  that 
her  daughter  might  be  married  in  the  chapel.  He 
said:  “Why  not  take  the  Church?”  “But  that  is  not 
for  the  likes  of  me,”  sighed  the  poor  soul.  Then 
Brooks  towered  like  a  mountain  of  celestial  glory 
as  he  answered :  “Oh,  yes,  it  is,  for  the  likes  of  you , 
and  the  likes  of  me,  and  the  likes  of  every  one.  The 
rich  people,  when  they  get  married,  like  to  fling 
their  money  about.  But,  my  dear  woman,  that  is 
not  necessary  in  order  to  be  married  at  Trinity 
Church.”  And  the  wedding  took  place  in  Trinity 
Church.  The  great  organ  was  played,  too,  as  if  the 
bride’s  rags  had  had  the  rustle  of  silk  or  broadcloth. 
And  I  doubt  not  that  God’s  angels  looked  on  while 
God’s  true  priest  made  them  man  and  wife.  Two 
poor,  ignorant  Roman  Catholic  women  lived  in 
Salem.  One  was  bemoaning  the  fact  that  her  son 
had  fallen  into  evil  ways.  Though  neither  had  ever 
seen  him,  the  other  said  to  the  sorrowing  mother: 
“My  friend,  the  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  take  your 


Phillips  Brooks  185 

boy  to  Phillips  Brooks.”  One  Sunday  morning,  a 
dying  colored  girl  sent  for  him  through  her  sister. 
As  he  was  then  ready  to  enter  Trinity  pulpit,  he 
sent  his  assistant,  who  explained  why  the  rector  could 
not  come  just  then.  The  dying  girl  said :  “Then  you 
go  back  and  tell  Phillips  Brooks  I  won’t  die  until  he 
comes.”  And  she  didn’t  die,  either,  not  until  he  had 
come  and  administered  the  Holy  Communion!  On 
a  Christmas  morning,  Brooks  watched  from  his  win¬ 
dow  a  street  urchin,  who  was  having  great  fun  ring¬ 
ing  door-bells,  and  then  running  away  before  any 
one  could  open  the  door.  When  the  lad  reached 
the  rectory  and  rang  the  bell,  the  preacher,  who  had 
concealed  himself  in  readiness,  at  once  opened  the 
door.  For  a  moment  the  boy  stood  speechless  at 
such  an  unexpected  revelation  of  avoirdupois  and 
kindly,  beaming  countenance.  Finding  his  tongue 
at  last,  he  said :  “Why,  is  that  you,  Phipps  Brooks ?” 
He  treasured  this  as  one  of  the  finest  tributes  he  ever 
received.  He  was  touched  to  tears  to  think  that  a 
homeless,  ragged,  little  child  should  take  his  name 
upon  his  innocent  lips  as  if  it  were  a  household  word, 
as  if  it  were  as  natural  as  to  greet  the  morning  sun 
and  say:  “You  are  God’s  dear  gift  to  the  world.” 

And  now  I  must  bring  to  a  close  this  imperfect 
interpretation.  So  many  things  have  been  inade¬ 
quately  said.  So  many  things,  also,  remain  unsaid. 
Brooks’  life  was  not  an  unbroken  flow  of  joy.  No 


1 86  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

truly  great  life  is,  or  can  be.  He  was  ofttimes  a 
lonely  man.  He  never  married.  But  he  adored  one 
woman — his  mother !  Sometimes  he  was  misunder¬ 
stood.  Once  he  was  publicly  hissed  in  an  Episcopal 
Convention.  But  he  always  carried  the  heart  of  a 
child,  the  purity  of  a  saint,  and  the  greatness  of  a 
great  Christian.  I  never  saw  him  in  the  flesh.  But 
I  have  often  seen  him  in  the  spirit.  Many  years 
ago,  while  sitting  as  a  boy  under  a  Kentucky  apple 
tree  in  midsummer,  I  saw  the  picture  of  his  noble 
face  for  the  first  time.  To  me,  he  began  that  day 
to  make  manhood  majestic.  Ah!  his  manhood  was 
so  magnificent  that  it  dwindled  skyscrapers  into 
atoms  and  compressed  worlds  into  the  dimensions 
of  marbles!  He  blinded  the  devil  of  envy  by  the 
splendor  of  his  smile.  He  made  love  captivating. 
He  made  virtue  beautiful  and  bewitching.  He  made 
faith  natural.  He  made  goodness  contagious.  He 
made  religion  vital.  He  made  spirit,  soul,  and 
body  unite  in  his  own  imperial  nature,  until  he  be¬ 
came  a  walking  melody  inspiring  the  lives  of  men. 
He  made  the  Fatherhood  of  God  more  winsome  than 
the  bosoms  of  all  the  mothers  who  have  labored  all 
the  children  of  men  into  life.  He  made  the  Saviour- 
hood  of  Christ  Jesus  mean  more  to  the  soul  than 
the  sun  means  to  the  day.  He  made  the  reality 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  ever-present  Comforter, 
Strengthener,  and  Illuminator,  to  be  more  sweet  and 


Phillips  Brooks  187 

lovely  than  any  lovely  song.  I  know  you  will  for¬ 
give  me  for  saying  that  I  shall  always  be  glad  that 
I  first  met  Phillips  Brooks  under  an  apple  tree.  And 
some  day,  please  God,  I  expect  to  meet  him  again 
under  the  Tree  of  Life.  If  I  do,  it  will  not  be  far 
from  the  throne  of  white  and  the  river  of  crystal. 
Then  will  I  thank  him  for  showing  me,  in  the  years 
of  earth  and  time,  to  better  love  and  serve  the  Lord 
and  Master  of  us  all.  Just  six  months  before  he 
died,  out  there  on  the  ship  plowing  the  great  deep, 
he  wrote  his  dear  song  called,  “The  Waiting  City.” 
One  time  I  remember  well  the  song  refreshed  my 
soul  with  its  delicious  sweetness.  I  was  walking 
at  the  dark  end  of  the  day.  I  was  also  out  in  the 
vast  open  spaces  of  being.  My  feet  were  on  the 
meadow  and  my  dreams  had  stolen  in  behind  the 
stars.  I  was  saying  over  and  over  again  those  golden 
words  of  George  Borrow:  “The  wind  is  on  the 
heather,  brother:  life  is  sweet.”  I  looked  up,  and 
the  evening  star  threw  its  silver  kisses  right  down 
into  my  face.  I  looked  back,  and  the  full-orbed 
moon  shot  its  old  lustrous  glory  right  across  my 
path.  I  looked  up,  and  out,  and  around,  and  yonder, 
underneath  the  evening  star  and  the  full  moon,  lay 
a  many-colored  sea,  whose  amber,  violet,  hyacinthine 
waves  washed  all  the  shores  of  night.  I  thought  the 
musical  color-sea  was  chanting  a  requiem  for  the 
dead  sunset.  It  was  then  and  there  that  Brooks' 


188  A  Moneyless  Magnate 

song  stole  into  my  heart  like  a  rhythm  of  unearthly 
peace.  Then  I  repeated  it  aloud.  But  as  its  melody 
went  drifting  down  the  winds  of  sunset,  it  did  not 
fail  to  leave  a  holy  hush  in  my  soul.  Written  on  the 
bosom  of  the  tumbling  deep,  “The  Waiting  City” 
has  none  of  the  ocean’s  storm.  But  it  has  much  of 
Heaven’s  deep,  sweet,  inner  calm : 

“A  city  throned  upon  the  height  behold, 

Wherein  no  foot  of  man  as  yet  has  trod ; 

The  City  of  Man’s  Life  fulfilled  in  God. 

Bathed  all  in  light,  with  open  gates  of  gold, 

Perfect  the  City  is  in  tower  and  street; 

And  there  a  Palace  for  each  mortal  waits, 
Complete  and  perfect,  at  whose  outer  gates 
An  Angel  stands  its  occupant  to  greet. 

Still  shine,  O  patient  City  on  the  height, 

The  while  our  race  in  hut  and  hovel  dwells. 

It  hears  the  music  of  thy  heavenly  bells 
And  its  dull  soul  is  haunted  by  thy  light. 

Lo,  once  the  Son  of  Man  hath  heard  thy  call 
And  the  dear  Christ  hath  claimed  thee  for  us  all.” 

Within  half  a  year  after  writing  the  song,  Phillips 
Brooks  entered  “The  Waiting  City.”  I  shall  always 
be  glad  that  he  left  the  dear  earth  for  the  dearer 
Heaven  just  at  dawn.  As  morning  came,  he  went. 
Not  many  hours  before  his  death  the  servants  found 
him,  his  mind  wandering,  climbing  the  stairs  leading 
from  his  own  room  to  the  topmost  story  of  the  rec¬ 
tory.  Asked  where  he  was  going,  he  replied :  “I  am 
going  home!”  O,  beautiful,  glorious,  fulfilled 


Phillips  Brooks  189 

prophecy !  For  with  the  breaking  of  that  very  dawn 
he  went  home,  and — 

v 

“Never  to  the  mansions  where  the  mighty  rest, 
Since  their  foundation  came  a  nobler  guest.” 

Yes;  thanks  be  unto  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son, 
and  God  the  Holy  Ghost — that  ineffable  Trinity 
whose  unspeakable  glories  he  preached  so  match¬ 
lessly — thanks  be  unto  the  Great  Three  in  One : 

“He  died  when  dawn  was  sweeping  o’er  the  land, 
When  morning  glories  lit  the  gleaming  wall ; 

And  one  who  watched  him,  holding  his  worn  hand, 
Whispered :  ‘Alas !  that  he  should  miss  it  all !’ 

The  early  sun,  risen  from  his  dark  night, 

Flamed  his  great  banners  when  he  went  away ; 

And  one  said :  ‘Lo !  at  coming  of  the  light 

He  hath  gone  forth  and  lost  the  beauteous  day !’ 

But  our  White  Knight,  from  mortal  house  of  pain 
Gladly  released,  went  singing  to  God’s  place, 

And  cried,  ‘Dear  Lord,  after  the  bleak  world-rain, 
I  cannot  bear  the  splendor  of  Thy  Face!’  ” 


THE  END 


Date  Due 


